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Book 

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UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA- 



The Secession Movement 

in South Carolina, 

1847-1852 



BY 

PHILIP MAY HAMER 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



H. Ray Haas & Co., 

Printers and Publishers 

Allentoavn, Pa. 

1918 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 






The Secession Movement 

in South Carolina, 

1847-1852 



BY 

PHILIP MAY HAMER 



^ 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OP THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
^^ IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE DEGREE OP DOCTOR OP PHILOSOPHY 



II. Ray Haas & Co., 

Printers and Publishers 

Allentown, Pa. 

1918 



Fz75 



copyright, 1918 
By p. M. Hamer . 



DEC aOlbio 



PREFACE 

The i^eriod, 1847-1852, forms but a small part of the more 
than thirty-five years during which may be traced the course of 
events which found its logical fulfilment in the secession of 
South Carolina from the Union in 1860. Although limited in 
time and, in lliis thesis, restricted largely to one state, the dis- 
union movement of this period possesses a unity and significance 
sufficient to warrant separate treatment. In its first phase it was 
primarily a Southern movement in opposition to the attempted 
prohibition of slavery in the territories acquired as a result of 
the Mexican War. It developed under the leadership of John C. 
Calhoun into an effort to unite the South in a demand for the 
e(|uality of the slave power within the Union or its independence 
without the Union. The difficulty of securing concerted action 
on the part of the slave holding states was demonstrated by the 
failure of tlie Nashville Convention, which, however, but for 
the Compromise of 1850, might have been, as Robert Barnwell 
Rhett believed it would be, "the beginning of a revolution." 

In this first phase South Carolina had played an important 
l)ut not too conspicuous part. In the second phase she openly 
demanded the rejection of tlie Compromise and the dissolution 
of the Union. Her disunion majority, however, was split into 
two factions: one demanding the secession of South Carolina 
alone from the Union; the other advocating disunion, but only 
in cooperation with other Southern states. The victory of the 
latter faction and the acceptance of the Compromise by the other 
states prevented any precipitate secession. 

The failure of the secession movement left South Carolina 
in 1852 still within the Union, but rather from necessity than 

ni. 



from choice. A decade earlier than the other states of the South 
she was convinced that negro slavery and the interests of the 
Southern states which were dependent upon that institution were 
threatened with destruction by a continuance of the political 
connection between the slave holdino- and the non-slave holding 
sectio7is of the Union. That South Carolina did not secede in 
18r)2, or even a year or two earlier, was due solely to the fact that 
she could not confidently expect even the cotton states to join her 
iu the formation of a Southern confederacy. She remained 
within the rnioa until thest> states by 1800 had advanced ro her 
|)Osition. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to say that I have attempted to 
frcal imj^artially this period in ihe history of my state. 1 (-an- 
not refrain, liowever, from expressing; here mj' keen admiration 
for that handful of hravr imMi ulio. l.il by Joel K. Poinsetl. 
James J.i0uis Petigni. and insijamin F. l*erry, in this period of 
extreme sectional hatred and j^ariisan strife remained true and 
loyal defenders of the I'nion. 

T wish to express m\' indebtedness to Professor \V. K. Boyd 
of Trinity College at whose suggestion and under whose diree- 
tifui tliis study was begun. I am also indebted to Dean Herman 
V. Ames, uiider whose guidance the major part of my graduate 
work has been done, and to Professor A. E. McKinley, of the 
Craduate School of the University of Pennsylvania, for their 
reading and helpful criticism of the manuscript. 

An article l)y Professor C-. S. Boucher, "The Secessi(m and 
Co-Operation Movements in South Carolina, 1848 to isr)2,'' iii 
the W(i!<}iiuritoii Unircrsih/ Studirs, Vol. V, No. 2, appeared oidy 
after tlie eompleiion of the manuscript of this thesis and ha;^ 
(onsetiueutly been of no aid in its preparation. 

P. M. H. 

I':aVEhSri'V of PK.WyYLVANIA, 
Jr^Hll.^i.EI.r-HlA, pi. 

M^Y, 19 IB 

IV. 



CONTENTS 



oVo 



PAGE 

Chaptei' 1. Tlie Wilmot Pi'oviso and the Campaign of 

1848 1 

rhnplei- 1 1. T^iited Aelion Urged, 1848-1849 22 

Chapter III. The Nashville Convention 38 

( 'iuipic;- I \'. The Compromise Rejecled 62 

Chajnei" V. Secession Advocated 84 

Chapter VI. Tlie Campaifrn and Election of 1851 102 

Chapter VII. TIk^ State Convention 120 

Bibliography 1^4. 



CHAPTER I 

The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 

"Nullification has done its work," wrote James L. Petigru, 
a leader of the South Carolina Unionists, in 1833; "it has pre- 
pared the minds of men for a separation of the States, and when 
the question is mooted again it will be distinctly union or dis- 
union. ' ' ^ Thirteen years later the United States was at war 
with Mexico, and the prospect of securing additional territory 
from that country led to the raising of the question which Peti 
gru had foreseen. President Polk asked Congress for an appro- 
priation of two million dollars to be used -by him in securing an 
adjustment of the boundary with Mexico, and a bill for this pur- 
pose was introduced into the House. On August 8, 1846, 
David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, precipitated the sectional con- 
flict by moving as an amendment to this bill a proviso prohibit- 
ing slavery in any territory that might be acciuired from Mex- 
ico. 2 The House accepted the proviso and passed the bill thus 
amended, but the session came to an end before a vote could be 
taken in the Senate. 

In South Carolina little attention was paid at first to the 
proviso. A few of the newspapers were mildly alarmed. The 
Camden Journal ^ saw indications of a coming struggle which 
would convulse the Union; the Greenville Mountaineer* feared 
that territorial conquests would raise issues vital to the exist- 

1 J. L. Petigru to H. S. Legare, July 15, 1833, in J, B. Allston, "Life 
and Times of James L. Petigru," in Chas. Sunday News, June 3, 1900. 
'Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., 1217. 
» Quoted in Pendleton Messenger, Oct. 16, 1846. 
* Oct. 30, Nov. 13, 1846. 



2 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

ence of every Southern state ; and the Pendleton Messenger,^ re- 
puted to be Calhoun's organ, though at first inclined to dismiss 
the AVilmot Proviso with the opinion that it would have failed in 
the Senate and ought to have done so, declared a little later, in 
view of the general disposition of both parties in the North to 
court the abolitionists, that beyond the Missouri Compromise 
line the South would not yield an inch. These were but scat- 
tered warnings. Even in the South Carolina legislature, which 
was in session during November and December, 1846, the ques- 
tion of slavery extension into the territories caused no discus- 
sion. 

Congress reassembled in December, and within the next few 
weeks it became clear that the principle of the Wilmot Proviso 
had received the indorsement of the people of both parties in 
the North and would be insisted upon by their representatives 
in Congress. The realization of this caused alarm in the South. 
The gravity of the situation appeared so great to John C. Cal- 
houn, senator from South Carolina and foremost champion of 
slavery, that he wrote: "What is to come of all this, time only 
can disclose. The present indication is, that the South will bo 
united in opposition to the Scheme. If they regard their safety 
they must defeat it even should the Union be rent asunder. . . . 
We never had a darker or more uncertain future before us."* 
Yet Calhoun thought that the contest would not arise until the 
expected territory should actually be acquired. This likewise 
was the view of South Carolina's most influential state rights 
paper, the Charleston Mercury, which declared that the South 
would firmly insist upon her fair share of the proposed acqui- 
sition. "^ 



'Aug. 21, Nov. 13, 1846. 

'Calhoun to Mrs. T. G. Clemson, Dec. 27, 1846, €alhoun Correspon- 
dence, 716. 

^Mercury, Dec. 24, 1846. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 3 

, ' A settlement of the question of slavery in the territories 
along the line of that made by the Missouri Compromise would, 
at this time at least, have been satisfactory to South Carolina. ^ 
But the defeat of an amendment to the Oregon territorial bill, 
proposed by Representative Burt of South Carolina, which 
would have committed Congress to this principle, ^ and the 
adoption by the House for the second time of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso, ^° convinced the press of the state that any division of the 
spoils of war between the two sections would not willingly be 
granted by the North. A storm was brewing, they warned their 
readers, which would shake the Union to its centre ; the Republic 
was in danger ; the ruin of the South had been decreed, and she 
must be prepared to meet the issue. ". 

Calhoun had been ' ' waiting for developments. ' ' On Febru- 
ary 19, 1847, four days after the House had adopted the Wilmot 
Proviso for the second time, he presented in the Senate his views 
on the question at issue in the form of a series of resolutions pre- 
faced by a speech in which he denounced the proviso and called 
upon the South to resist. His resolutions, soon termed "The 
Platform of the South ' ', were as follows : — 

"Besolved, That the territories of the United States belong 
to the several States composing this Union, and are held by them 
as their joint and common property. 

"Resolved, That Congress, as the joint agent and represen- 
tative of the States of this Union, has no right to make any law, 
or do any act whatever, that shall directly, or by its effects, 
make any discrimination between the States of this Union, by 

8 Chas. Evening News, quoted in Pendleton Messenger, Jan. 29, 1847; 
Greenville Mountaineer, Jan. 22, 1847; Pendleton Messenger, Jan. 22, 1847; 
Mercury, Feb. 20, 1847. 

» Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 2 sess., 187. 

^"Ibid., 425. 

" Pendleton Messenger, Jan. 1, 1847 ; Chas. Evening News quoted in 
ibid., Jan. 15, 1847; Mercury, Dec. 24, 1846, Feb. 9, 24, 1847. 



4 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

which any of them shall be deprived of its full and equal rights 
in any territory of the United States acquired or to be acquired. 

"Resolved, That the enactment of any law which should 
directly, or by its eflfects, deprive the citizens of any of the 
States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, into 
any of the territories of the United States, will make such dis- 
crimination, and would, therefore, be a violation of the Consti- 
tution, and the rights of the States from which such citizens emi- 
grated, and in derogation of that perfect equality which belongs 
to them as members of this Union, and would tend directly to 
subvert the Union itself. 

"Resolved, That it is a fundamental principle in our polit- 
ical creed, that a people, in forming a constitution, have the un- 
conditional right to form and adopt the government which they 
may think best calculated to secure their liberty, prosperity, and 
happiness ; and that, in conformity thereto, no other condition is 
imposed by the Federal Constitution on a State, in order to be 
admitted into this Union, except that its Constitution shall be re- 
publican ; and that the imposition of any other by Congress 
would not only be in violation of the Constitution, but in direct 
conflict with the principle on which our political system 
rests." ^- 

Calhoun did not press his resolutions to a vote as he had 
planned. The principles they asserted were intended to form 
the constitutional basis for Southern opposition to the Wilmot 
Proviso, and for this purpose the presentation of the resolutions 
in the Senate was sufficient. A few days after their introduc- 
tion the Senate rejected the Wilmot Proviso ; the House receded 
from its position ; and the adjournment of Congress postponed 
for the time being the threatened sectional conflict. There could 
be no doubt, however, that the effort to prevent the further ex- 

'" Calhoun, Works, IV, 348; Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 2 sess., 455. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 5 

pansion of slavery would be renewed. The speeches of North- 
ern representatives in Congress, the agitation of the question in 
the newspapers of the North, and the approval of the Wilmot 
Proviso by the people of the non-slaveholding states, expressed 
in the resolutions of public meetings and of state legislatures, 
were sufficient evidence of this. 

On the side of the South the first state to take an official 
position was Virginia. On March 8, 1847, her legislature 
adopted resolutions which expressed, even to a certain extent in 
the same words, the doctrine of Calhoun's resolutions regarding 
the rights of the states in the territories. In addition they as- 
serted the determination of the people of Virginia, should the 
adoption and attempted enforcement of the Wilmot Proviso 
force the issue upon them, determinedly to resist ' ' at all hazards 
and to the last extremity." They called upon every man, in 
every section of the country, if the Union were dear to him, to 
oppose the passage of the proviso ; and, in the event of its pass- 
age, they urged every slaveholding state and all citizens there- 
of, as they valued ''their dearest privileges, their sovereignty, 
their independence, their rights of property, to take firm, united 
and concerted action in this emergency." ^'^ 

In South Carolina the newspapers vigorously denounced 
the Wilmot Proviso, and urged the South to speak out in de- 
fense of her rights. As was to be expected, the resolutions of 
Calhoun and of Virginia met with a decided approbation. On 
the evening of March 9th, an enthusiastic meeting of the citizens 
of Charleston was held to welcome Calhoun who was in the city 
on his way home from Washington. The resolutions adopted 
by the meeting reiterated verbatim the Virginia resolutions; 
asserted that the question at issue was paramount to all con- 
siderations of party and temporary policy ; and declared that 

^^Laws of Virginia, 1846-47, 236; H. V. Ames, State Documents on 
Federal Relations, 245-247. 



6 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

submission to the proposed exclusion of slavery, beyond what 
had already been yielded by the Missouri Compromise, "would 
be unwise, dangerous, dishonorable, and debasing." A report 
accompanying these resolutions expressed the conviction of the 
citizens of Charleston that the developments of the past year re- 
quired "the most grave and earnest consideration of the whole 
people of the slaveholding States." The introduction of the 
Wilmot Proviso and its acceptance by the House in August, 
1846, the passage by the House of the Oregon bill without the 
Missouri Compromise and with the Wilmot Proviso, the second 
passage of this proviso in the House during the last session of 
Congress, the whole temper of the Northern press, both Whig 
and Democratic, in sustaining this action, and the resolutions of 
the legislatures of nine Northern states denouncing slavery and 
protesting against its further extension, convinced them of the 
fixed determination on the part of the non-slaveholding states 
that slavery was not to be allowed to exist in any of the terri- 
tories of the United States and that no other slave state would be 
admitted to the Union. The report furthermore asserted that 
slavery must be preserved or the South would be ruined, and 
that to preserve slavery the South must jealously watch her 
rights under the Constitution, insist upon her proportionate in- 
fluence intended by the compromises of that compact, and above 
all must maintain at all hazards her equality in the Union. ^* 

Calhoun, addressing this assembly, declared it his convic- 
tion that a large majority of both parties in the non-slaveholding 
states were determined to appropriate to themselves all existing 
and future territories of the United States. Anti-slavery senti- 
ment, he said, was growing, and he was convinced that unless 
the South met the issue promptly and decidedly, the two sections 



" Calhoim to Duff Green, Mar. 9, 1847, and to T. G. Clemson, Mar. 19, 
1847, Calhoun Correspondence, 718, 720; Mercury, Mar. 10, 1847. 



The WiLMOT Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 7 

of the Union would soon become so thoroughly alienated that no 
course would be left to the South but abject submission to aboli- 
tion or a severance of the bonds of the Union. The action that 
he urged upon the South was the destruction of all party dis- 
tinctions and the formation of one Southern party having as its 
sole object the defense of slavery. Such a party Calhoun be- 
lieved would hold the balance of power in the nation, be able 
then to put a stop to anti-slavery agitation, and thus save slav- 
ery and save the Union. ^^ 

Though Calhoun not only hoped but expected that the slav- 
ery agitation would break up the old party organizations, ^° the 
time for this had not yet come. Outside of South Carolina both 
parties were strong, and while the proposal of a Southern party 
met with some approval, the majority of the people of the South 
considered the existing party system sufficient for the protection 
of Southern interests. Even within South Carolina, where the 
Whig party was insignificant and Calhoun's influence was para- 
mount, there were some who realized that the formation of a 
Southern party on the slavery issue would force the North to do 
the same and thereby destroy those bonds of party which yet 
aided in holding the two sections together. Calhoun they sus- 
pected of presidential aspirations, and his Charleston speech 
they privately declared to be a bid for the vote of the South. 
Ex-Governor James H. Hammond, nullifier and long an advo- 
cate of disunion, feared that outside of South Carolina this 
would be so clear that "our cause" would be thrown back. Vir- 
ginia has started the ball, he wrote to William Gilmore Simms, 
and, as the state best able to rally the South and lead to victory, 
she should be kept in the lead. ' ' South Carolina under present 



"Calhoun, Works, IV, 382-396. 

" Calhoun to T. G. Clemson, July 8, 24, 1847, Calhoun Correspondence, 

735, 736. 



8 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

auspices," he continued, "can do nothing if she puts herself 
foremost but divide the South and insure disastrous defeat." ^^ 

During the summer of 1847 Calhoun 's friends in Charleston 
directed their efforts towards arousing the South. An extra 
edition of the Mercury containing the Wilmot Proviso, the res- 
olutions of ten Northern states favoring it, the Virginia resolu- 
tions and the Charleston resolutions opposing it, and a leading 
editorial by Franklin H. Elmore, President of the South Caro- 
lina State Bank, was widely distributed in the slaveholding 
states. Efforts were made towards the establishment of a South- 
ern press at Washington. Letters and subscription lists, solicit- 
ing support for this enterprise, were circulated, but except from 
Charleston and its vicinity little financial aid was received. ^^ 
The Mercury took the lead in the newspaper agitation and urged 
the South to make clear to the North its determination to meet 
the issue, should it be presented, on the forum or on the battle 
field. ^® The agitation directed from South Carolina was not 
without its effect. Throughout the South various papers began 
to take alarm, and the old proposal of a Southern convention 
was again advanced. It was not, however, until a number of pa- 
pers in various Southern states had urged the assembling of such 
a convention that the Mercury, wisely having thought it best 
"that the initiative for the attainment of this great object should 
be taken by others," gave its specific approval to the sugges- 
tion. 20 

Calhoun, in his private correspondence, was doing his part 



"Hammond to Simms, Mar. 21, Apr. I, 1847; Simms to Hammond, 
May 1, 1847, Hammond MSS. 

"H, W. Conner to Calhoun, Aug. 23, 1847, Calhoun Correspondence, 
1128; I. W. Hayne to James H. Hammond, Mar. 31, 1847; I. W. Hayne to 
Soule, Aug. 25, 1847; A. P. Aldrieh to Hammond, Aug. 30, 1847, Hammond 
MSS. 

19 Mercury, Aug. 9, 1847, and issues of August and September, passim. 

'"Ibid., Sept. 30, 1847. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign op 1848 9 

to promote unity at the South in defense of slavery. In this 
connection it is important to note his opinion of the question of 
slavery in the territories as expressed in a conversation with 
President Polk in December, 1846. He agreed with Polk that 
slavery probably never would exist in the territories that were 
to be acquired from Mexico. He further stated, if Polk's ac- 
count may be accepted as correct, that he did not desire to ex- 
tend slavery, but that the attempt to prohibit slavery in the ter- 
ritories would involve a principle against which he would vote. -^ 
Calhoun evidently changed his mind about the possibility of the 
existence of slavery in the South-west, and he certainly did de- 
sire its extension, '^or the fact that the Northern section of the 
union was outstripping the Southern was his chief grievance and 
the chief cause for his fear that the South would soon be unable 
to protect slavery within the Union. \ But it is true that he at- 
tached less importance to the Wilmot Proviso per se than numer- 
ous others who took part in the Southern movement of this 
period. At least he took a broader view of the controversy be- 
tween North and South ; he considered the Wilmot Proviso but 
one of the numerous issues affecting slavery which should be 
settled; and he looked more to the ultimate political than eco- 
nomic results of its adoption. It is not too much to say that the 
introduction of the Wilmot Proviso gave to Calhoun the oppor- 
tunity of forcing the whole issue of slavery upon the North. If 
he had not desired it and did not w^elcome it, at least he was not 
slow in seizing it. 

Nothing makes clearer the position that Calhoun took in 
1847, and furnishes a better key to an understanding of his ac- 
tivities and his purposes during the next three and final years of 
his life, than a letter he wrote at this period to a member of the 
Alabama legislature. In reply to a request for his opinion as to 

"James K. Polk, Diary, II., 283-284. 



10 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

what steps should be taken to guard the rights of the South, Cal- 
houn wrote: "I am much gratified with the tone and views of 
your letter, and concur entirely in the view you express, that 
instead of shunning, we ought to court the issue with the North 
on the slavery question. I would even go one step further, and 
add that it is our duty — due to ourselves, to the Union, and our 
political institutions, to force the issue on the North. We are 
now stronger relatively than we shall be hereafter, politically 
and morally. Unless we bring on the issue, delay to us will be 

dangerous indeed Such has been my opinion from the first. 

Had the South, or even my own State backed me, I would have 
forced the issue on the North in 1835, when the spirit of abo- 
litionism first developed itself to any considerable extent. It is 
a true maxim, to meet danger on the frontier, in politics as 
well as war. Thus thinking, I am of the impression, that if the 

South acts as it ought, the Wilmot Proviso may be made 

the occasion of successfully asserting our equality and rights, by 

enabling us to force the issue on the North But in making 

up this issue, we must look far beyond the Proviso. It is but one 
of many acts of aggression, and, in my opinion, by no means the 
most dangerous or degrading, though more striking and pal- 
pable With this impression, I would regard any compro- 
mise or adjustment of the Proviso, or even its defeat, without 
meeting the danger in its whole length and breadth, as very un- 
fortunate for us. It would lull us to sleep without removing 
the danger, or materially diminishing it." The letter then con- 
tinued with a denunciation of the personal liberty laws of 
Northern states, and anti-slavery agitation in all its phases. 
Coming to the consideration of how the whole question could be 
met "without resorting to a dissolution of the Union," a 
measure which should be used only as a last resort, Calhoun pro- 
posed retaliation on the part of the South by a refusal to fulfill 
the constitutional stipulations in favor of the Northern states. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 11 

Specifically he suggested the exclusion of Northern ships and 
commerce from Southern ports. To give force to such measures 
and to make up the issue, he urged a convention of the slavehold- 
ing states. -' The idea of commercial retaliation was similarly 
urged upon his Charleston friends, in a letter to them approving 
the plan then under consideration, but soon temporarily 
abandoned, of organizing the South into Southern Rights As- 
sociations. ^^ 

While Calhoun was thus considering the measures that 
should be adopted by a Southern convention, in South Carolina 
a further impetus to the agitation against the Wilmot Proviso 
was given by public meetings held in all sections of the state. 
The first of these, at Edgefield Court House early in September, 
adopted the Virginia resolutions and expressed a willingness to 
cooperate with the Southern states in averting injustice and re- 
sisting aggression. -* A meeting at Darlington on October 4th 
declared that the South should make no concession beyond the 
Missouri Compromise line; it deemed the Union as dust in the 
balance if its preservation required submission to the Wilmot 
Proviso ; and it demanded that the Southern representatives in 
Congress, upon the adoption of this proviso, leave their seats 
and return home. '^ In Anderson a resolution was adopted urg- 
ing the South Carolina legislature to request the representatives 
of the state in Congress to retire from their seats, should the 
proviso pass, and return home to consult regarding measures 



" This letter, without date and without the name of the addressee, is 
given by Benton iu his Thirty Years Vieic, II, 698-700. Extracts, with 
minor changes in wording, also printed iu J. W. DuBose, Life of Yancey, 
200-201. For the idea of forcing the issue, cf. J. H. Hammond to W. G. 
Simms, Nov. 17, 1848, ' * The Wilmot Proviso issue as I told you at the first 
was the weakest of all we could have made the fight on. ' ' Hammond MSS. 

"Letter dated Sept. 28, 1847, published in Mercury, May 5, 1851. 

" Hamburg Journal, quoted in Pendleton Messenger, Sept. 24, 1847. 

"Mercury, Oct. 11, 1847. 



12 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

for the protection of the shiveholding states. ^^' The people of 
Laurens professed a devotion to the Union, but at the same time 
pledged resistance to the Wilmot Proviso "although a dissolu- 
tion of the Union be the result." -' A Greenville meeting adopt- 
ed resolutions substantially those of the Virginia legislature. ^^ 
The planters of Edisto Island declared for "i-esistance in the 
most effective mode, ' ' ^" and those of Georgetown pledged their 
cooperation in such defensive measures as aggression should 
compel. ^" 

Though for the most part these meetings, of whicli the above 
are representative, were unanimous in demanding resistance to 
the Wilmot Proviso, few of them outlined any definite measures 
of resistance. And when they advocated resistance by the 
united South, they did not specifically outline the means by 
which this might be accomplished. But a meeting on November 
2nd in Pickens District, in which was located Fort Hill, Cal- 
houn's home, made definite and elaborate proposals, save as to 
the final action to be taken should all other action fail. Calhoun 
apparently took no part in the proceedings, but tlie resolutions 
adopted express exactly his position at this time. They de- 
nounced not onl.y the Wilmot Proviso but also the action of 
Pennsylvania and other Northern states in preventing the execu- 
tion of the fugitive-slave law, and they proposed action by the 
South along three general lines. They urged first, the removal 
of party considerations, the establishment of a Southern press 
at Washington, opposition to any presidential candidate not 
openly opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, the refusal to enter into 
caucus or convention with those favorable to the proviso, and the 



■'Uhid., Nov. 16, 1847. 

'" Greenville Mouniainccr, Oct. 29, 1847. 

'"Ibid., Oct. 8, 1847. 

'^Mercury, Nov. 8, 1847. 

^ Winyah Observer (Georgetown), Nov. 10, 1847. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 13 

calling of a convention of the Southern states to unite the South 
for common action along these lines. In the event of the failure 
of these milder measures they proposed a second step — the set- 
ting aside of the constitutional provisions favorable to the North- 
ern states and epecially the exclusion of their ships and com- 
merce from Southern harbors. Should this likewise fail, the 
resolutions of this meeting declared, "we stand prepared to 
throw the responsibility on our assailants, and take the final rem- 
edy into our own bauds, without fear that we in the end will be 
the greatest sufferers. ' ' ^^ 

In the up-country one of the most active leaders in opposition 
to the Wilmot Proviso was Benjamin F. Perry. In nullification 
days Perry had been a Unionist. Because of this fact and be- 
cause of his later opposition to secession, his attitude towards 
the proviso is worthy of careful notice. In a speech at the 
Pickens meeting he declared that the question raised by the Wil- 
mot Proviso was one of life or death, and that its passage would 
be "tantamount to a dissolution of the Union." Out of the coun- 
try to be acquired from Mexico perhaps ten or fifteen states 
would be formed, and the effects of the Wilmot Proviso, he 
thought, would be to draw a cordon of free states about the slave- 
holding country, cut off all outlet for property in slaves, and 
make that property, as it increased, valueless and a fatal nui- 
sance to the South. Perry was speaking in that district of South 
Carolina which contained the smallest proportion of slaves and 
the greatest proportion of non-slaveholders of any district in the 
state. The men assembled at this meeting did not perhaps feel 
themselves vitally interested in the question of slavery exten- 
sion, but they did possess their full share of prejudice against 
the black race. To this prejudice Perry directed an appeal fre- 
quently met with in the speeches delivered in this section of the 

^ Pendleton Messenger, Nov. 12, 1847. 



14 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

state. He declared that the avowed spirit of abolition was to 
make the negro not only free "but the equal of his master. . . .He 
is to go with him to the polls and vote, to serve on juries, appear 
in court as a party and a witness. He is to meet the white man 
as an equal and visit his family, inter-marry with his children 
and form one society and one family ! " To defeat this spirit of 
abolition in the North and to save the Union the speaker pro- 
posed that a convention of the slaveholding states be held during 
the coming winter. It would show to the North the real temper 
of the South on this question, he thought, and exert a controlling 
influence on congress. "Let them speak firmly, coolly and dis- 
passionately, ' ' he said, ' ' and declare that any interference on the 
part of the Federal Government with slave property will be the 
cause of an immediate dissolution of this great and hitherto glor- 
ious Union .... The voice of a single State may not be heeded 
but when the whole South speaks, her admonition will and must 
be respected. ' ' ^^ 

Waddy Thompson was one of the few South Carolina 
Whigs. Speaking in Greenville from the same platform with 
Perry he declared to the audience before him : ' ' The alternatives 
before you are in my deliberate judgment, re-sistance at all haz- 
ards and to every possible extremity, to this insulting, degrading 
and fatal measure [the Wilmot Proviso], or the conversion of 
the South into black provinces." Being a Whig, Thompson 
hoped to avoid the issue by refusing to ac(iuire territory from 
Mexico. But should the issue come, "What then is the reme- 
dy?" he asked. "There is but one.... That word is not used 
in the Resolutions which have been submitted, but the thing is 
meant — Dissolution. Gentlemen, I ask you, in the event of the 
assertion of the principle of the Wilmot Proviso by the act of 
Congress, are you ready to dissolve the Union ? I am. ' ' ^^ 

"Ibid., Dec. 10, 17, 1847. 

" Greenville Mountaineer, Oct. 15, 1847. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 15 

South Carolina had as yet taken no official stand on the 
question which by now had so aroused her people. Her legisla- 
ture met in annual session late in November. In his message to 
that body Governor David Johnson discussed the question of the 
Wilmot Proviso at some length but in moderate tones, and he 
recommended the Virginia resolutions as a correct expression of 
the rights of the slaveholding states and as pointing to the proper 
action. ^* In the Senate, resolutions reported by the Committee 
on Federal Relations were unanimously adopted. ^^ The first 
four were in substance, and in part verbatim, the Virginia re- 
solutions. The fifth, however, was in advance of the position 
taken by Virginia. It declared that in the event of the passage 
by Congress of a law prohibiting the introduction of slave prop- 
erty into any territory acquired from Mexico or from any other 
power, it would become the duty of the governor of South Car- 
olina to convene immediately the legislature in order that it 
might take such actions as should by it be deemed necessary and 
becoming; and it requested that the Governor, between the sum- 
moning and assembling of the legislature, ' ' correspond and con- 
sult with the authorities of other states with a view to harmon- 
ious action on this important subject. " ^^ In the House, mean 
while, the Committee on Federal Relations, having considered a 
number of resolutions on the Wilmot Proviso, reported for 
adoption the Virginia resolutions verbatim. ^^ On the last day 
of the session the House considered the Senate resolutions and 
asked leave to amend by striking out the fifth. This request the 
Senate refused to grant. A conference committee failed to 
reach any agreement, whereupon the House tabled the Senate 



" S. C. House Journal, 1847, 19-20. 

'"" S. C. Senate Journal, 1847, 130-131. 

'^Courier, Dee. 16, 1847. 

" Columbia Daily Herald, Dec. 14, quoted in Courier, Dec. 16, 1847. 



16 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

resolutions and adopted without roll call just before adjourn- 
ment the Virginia resolutions as reported by its committee. ^* 

The reasons for the failure of the two houses to agree upon 
the stand that South Carolina should take were not explained at 
the time. The two sets of resolutions illustrate a division of 
opinion as to the course South Carolina should take, which was 
more or less present during the whole period of the Southern 
movement resulting from the introduction of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso. Both houses were, of course, in favor of the sentiments ex- 
pressed by the Virginia legislature as far as they went. The 
Senate resolutions represented the opinion of those, impatient of 
delay and of restraint, who desired that the state go beyond 
Virginia and assume a position requiring some definite action. 
But this was in conflict with the opinion of wiser leaders who 
sought union of opinion and of action by the South, and who 
realized that this could better be obtained with Virginia rather 
than South Carolina in the lead. 

Already the A/'irginia resolutions had met with a favorable 
response in other states. In May, 1847, the Alabama Demo- 
cratic Convention had given them its approval, ^^ and a few 
weeks later the Georgia Democracy did the same. ^° Governor 
Brown of Mississippi declared 1hat they met a hearty response in 
his state from both parties. *^ In December the Alabama legis- 
lature adopted resolutions which not only took the position of 
Calhoun and Virginia that the territories were the common 
property of the states and protested against the prohibition of 
slavery in them, but declared it the duty of Congress to protect 
slave property within the territories. They promised, more- 

=•"5. C. House Journal, 1847, 205, 206, 207, 208. Neither of the reso- 
lutions is given in the Journals or in the Reports and Resolutions, and 
hence the citations to newspapers. 

^Niles' Register, LXXII, 179. 

"^Ibid., 293. 

*^Ibid., 178. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 17 

over, that Alabama would act in concert, and make common 
cause, with the other slaveholding states, for the defense, in any 
manner that might be necessary, of the institution of slavery. *^ 
The Texas legislature on February 2nd, 1848, declared the pro- 
posed prohibition of slavery in the territories unconstitutional, 
and on March 18th, asserted that the state would not submit to 
such restriction if applied to any territory that might be ac- 
quired from Mexico. *^ In the other Southern states no official 
action was taken, and the presidential campaign soon absorbed, 
for the time being, practically all attention. 

In South Carolina General Taylor had early been looked 
upon with some favor as a presidential possibility. ** The Pen- 
dleton Messenger, as early as May 28, 1847, while urging that 
South Carolina should keep aloof from the campaign until 
further developments, declared that should Taylor later come 
out as a free trade man and decline a caucus nomination it might 
become the duty of the state to support him. *^ In Charleston 
the feeling in favor of Taylor was very strong, but on the ad- 
vice of Calhoun it was for the time being kept quiet. *^ There 
was even some hope on the part of Calhoun's friends that he 
would be able to take the field as an independent candidate, *'^ 
but the futility of this hope made any action in that direction 
impossible. Cass, as one of the leading candidates for the Demo- 
cratic nomination, was highly objectionable because of his ad- 
vocacy of the right of the people of a territory to settle for them- 
selves the question of slavery. This doctrine of "squatter sov- 
ereignty ' ' had been advanced by Senator Dickinson of New York 

*^Laws of Alabama, 1847-48, 450-451. 
••^SO Cong., 1 sess., House Misc. Doc, Nos. 27 and 91. 
" Hammond to W. G. Simms, Apr. 19, 1847, Hammond MSS. 
" Pendleton Messenger, May 28, 1847. 

*^ H. W. Conner to Calhoun, Dec. 8, 1847, Calhoun Correspondence, 
1147. 

^' James Gadsden to Calhoun, Dec. 9, 1847, ibid., 1148-1149. 



18 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

in resolutions presented to the Senate, December 14, 1847, ** and 
approved by Cass in his Nicholson letter of December 24. *° Cal- 
houn was in close touch with the Mercury and he was interested 
in seeing that this paper properly noticed Dickinson's resolu- 
tions. ^*' This the Mercury did without much prompting, and in 
its own vivid style denounced the doctrine of squatter sovereign- 
ty, and condemned all of its advocates as men who desired to 
seem to abandon the Wilmot Proviso and yet retain its prin- 
ciple. ^^ In the Senate Calhoun denied that either the people or 
the legislature of a territory had a constitutional right to ex- 
clude slavery. ^^ Yet some sentiment favorable to this settle- 
ment of the question existed within the state and increased with 
the progress of the presidential campaign. ^^ 

Acting on the advice of Calhoun, ^* yet contrary to the 
wishes of a considerable element who thought that the state 
should take some action in common with the other Southern 
states and no longer content herself with protestations. South 
Carolina, as previously in 1840 and 1844. took no part in the 
Democratic Convention which met in Baltimore the latter part 
of May. '^ Her avowed reason for thus remaining aloof was 

"' Cong. Globe, 30 Cong., 1 sess., 27. 

"Niles' Begister, LXXIII, 293. 

"Henry Gourdin to Calhoun, Jan. 19, Feb. 4, 1848, Calhoun Corre- 
spondence, 1159-1161. 

" Mercury, Jan. 6, 17, Feb. 2, 11, 1848. 

" Speech on the Oregon Bill, June 27, 1848, Calhoun, Worls, IV, 498. 

"D. J. MeCord to Hammond, Jan. 9, 1848, Hammond MSS. Compare 
the editorials of the South Carolinian, Feb. 15 and June 23, 1848, for at- 
titude on squatter sovereignty before and after the nomination of Cass. 

"H. W. Conner to Calhoun, Apr. 13, 1848, Calhoun Correspondence, 
1166-1167. 

^° One Democrat from South Carolina attended the convention and was 
given the right to cast all of the votes of the state. The Mercury declared 
that his representation of the state was a farce, his only title to represen- 
tation being election by a meeting of fifty-five persons at Georgetown, 
among whom was "one solitary planter (the delegate himself), in the midst 
of a population of planters, nearly all Democrats." Mercury, May 26, 
30, 1848. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign of 1848 19 

that she feared to compromise her position by taking part in 
proceedings which might result in the nomination of a candidate 
whom she could not support. '^^ The chief organ of the radicals 
demanded of the convention as the price for the state 's support, 
the nomination of a man "true and above taint or suspicion,'' 
true to those constitutional principles "on the maintenance of 
which hangs the fate of slavery — the welfare of the Slave States 
— the existence of the Union. ' ' ^^ 

The Democratic Convention, however, nominated Cass and 
Butler, and rejected by a large majority the extreme pro-slavery 
resolutions proposed by Yancey, of Alabama, demanding pro- 
tection by the United States of slavery in the territories and 
denying to the inhabitants of the territories the power to pro- 
hibit it. The Mercury declared the nomination of Cass very un- 
satisfactory J'^ A meeting of the Charleston Democrats on June 
6th denounced the proceedings of the Baltimore Convention as 
" unsatisf actorj^ and objectionable," but it tabled as premature 
resolutions nominating General Taylor, and decided to await 
developments before expressing any preference for the presi- 
dency. ^^ Taylor 's acceptance of the Whig nomination left the 
Democrats of South Carolina more than ever undecided as to 
whom they should give their support. The situation was rather 
fittingly expressed in a toast offered at a Fourth of July cele- 
bration in Saint Paul's Parish: "General Cass and General 
Taylor : the two horns of a dilemma to Southern patriots. We 
want no statesman who has knuckled to abolitionists, or who 
marches under the banner of Whiggery. Yet if compelled to 
elect will prefer the advocate of a Tariff to the approver of the 
Wilmot Proviso. ' ' •'° 

"/6id., May 20, 27, 1848. 

" lUd., April 24, May 20, 1848. 

" lUd., May 30, June 2, 1848. 

" Ibid., June 7, 1848 ; Courier, June 7, 1848. 

"■" Mercury, July 8, 1848. 



20 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

A distinct division of sentiment on the course South Caro- 
lina should pursue soon became apparent. On July 20th, the 
situation was cleared somewhat by a meeting in Charleston of 
Taylor Democrats. These declared themselves under no obliga- 
tion to support the nominee of the Democratic Convention 
"whose opinion, on a subject to them of paramount importance, 
has been marked by singular vacillation ; ' ' and they concurred 
in the nomination of General Taylor "made by the people of 
the United States, irrespective of parties, and independent of 
politicians. ' ' Fillmore, however, they could not accept ; and 
W. 0. Butler, the regular Democratic nominee, was named as 
their choice for the vice-presidency. "^ In other districts Cass 
and Taylor meetings were held, and the state was soon in the 
midst of a heated and somewhat bitter campaign. On August 
21st a Cass and Butler meeting in Charleston, held contrary to 
the advice of Calhoun, "^ condemned Whig latitudinarianism 
and its "whole brood of Federalist measures," and expressed 
its preference for Cass because he was a Democrat and also be- 
cause he was opposed to and denied the constitutionality of con- 
gressional legislation on the matter of slavery. ^^ On the same 
day the Mercury, after a long period of hesitation, came out for 
Cass, ®* having concluded, that though Cass had not given all the 
pledges that were desired, Taylor had given none, and that the 
friends of Cass at the North were more favorable to the South 
than were the friends of Taylor. ^^ Calhoun remained neutral. 
In both candidates he saw much to condemn and little to ap- 
prove, and desired to be regarded as taking no part between the 



''Ibid., July 21, 1848. 

" J. M. Walker to Hammond, Aug. 22, 1848, Hammond MSS. 

'^Courier, Aug. 22, 1848. 

'* Mercury, Aug. 21, 1848. 

" Ibid., Aug. 5, 1848. 



The Wilmot Proviso and the Campaign op 1848 21 

two, but as standing ready to support or oppose the successful as 
his measures might or might not accord with his own. ^^ 

As presidential electors were chosen by the legislature, the 
only method by which the people of the state could express their 
preference between the presidential candidates was in the choice 
of legislators who had pledged themselves for Cass or for Taylor. 
In Charleston the contest seems to have been the most hotly con- 
tested. Here, as well as in some other districts and parishes, 
both Cass and Taylor tickets were named. The elections, which 
occurred October 9th and 10th, resulted in a victory for the 
partisans of Cass. Charleston, with the aid of the small Whig 
minority, it was alleged, " elected a Taylor man to the United 
States Congress, a Taylor man to the State Senate, and thirteen 
Taylor and four Cass Democrats to the House. '^^ The legislature, 
called into special session for the purpose, chose Cass electors by 
a vote of 129 to 27. ^^ 



"'Calhoun to editor of the Mercury, Sept. 1., 1848, published in ihid., 
Sept. 6, 1848. 

"Mercury, Oct. 23, 1848. 

"'Ibid., Oct. 13, 1848. 

"' S. C. House Journal, extra sess., 1848, 11. 



22 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 



CHAPTER II 

United Action Urged, 1848-1849 

Contrary to the expectations of the Whigs, ^ the temporary 
division in the ranks of the South Carolina Democrats did not 
prove permanent. Calhoun and other leaders sought to prevent 
a bitterness in the campaign which would divide the state and 
weaken her position in opposition to the aggressions upon slav- 
ery. For a time the campaign had tended to distract attention 
from all other questions, but even before it was over the still 
unsettled question of slavery in the territories was pushed to 
the front. 

In August, speaking in Charleston, Calhoun urged modera- 
tion and kindly feeling in the conduct of the campaign, for he 
thought that the time was soon to come when the united energies 
of the South would be needed for the struggle with the growing 
spirit of abolition. He still clung to the idea that a Southern 
party might enable the South to command her own terms in 
cooperation with a party in the North. "But," he continued, 
"if this fails to arrest the spirit of aggression now so manifest, 
and the alternative is forced upon us of resistance or submission, 
who can doubt the result. Though the Union is dear to us, our 
honor and our liberty are dearer. And we would be abundantly 
able to maintain ourselves. The North is rich and powerful but 
she has many elements of division and weakness .... The South, 
on the contrary, has a homogeneous population, and a common 



^ Robert Toombs to John J. Crittenden, Sept. 27, 1848, Toombs, Ste- 
phens and Cobb Corresponden<;e, 128; " Charlestonian " to N. Y. Courier, in 
Mercury Oct. 25, 1848. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 23 

bond of union, which would render us powerful and united. 
Wherever Southern men have been placed upon the battlefield 

they have shown themselves in generalship and soldiership 

at least equal to those of any other section of the Union. Our Cus- 
tom Houses would afford us a revenue ample for every purpose. 
.... In whatever aspect, then, we consider it we will be as well 
prepared for the struggle as the North. ' ' ^ 

Never had Calhoun spoken so openly of the possibility of 
disunion. Heretofore, South Carolina had protested and threat- 
ened but, restrained by Calhoun, her citizens had for the most 
part refrained from an advocacy of any specific plan of action 
which would have placed the state in advance of the others of the 
South. The idea of a Southern convention had been suggested 
as early as the fall of 1847, and as we have seen, Calhoun had 
written with this object in view to some of his supporters out- 
side of South Carolina. But in the opinion of one of these, the 
people of no state, save South Carolina, were then ready for such 
action, ^ and the occasional suggestion of a Southern conven- 
tion had failed to arouse any enthusiasm. Concerted action by 
the South was now demanded generally throughout South Caro- 
lina. Representative Burt, a close friend of Calhoun, recom- 
mended a convention of slave holding states as the only means 
whereby the South could save herself from the ultimate destruc- 
tion of slavery.* A meeting of the citizens of Saint Peter's 
Parish, September 9, recommended the call of a Southern con- 
vention and the adoption, if necessary, of "startling measures" 
to preserve the honor, liberty, lives and property of the South, 

^Mercury, Aug. 21, 1848. Calhoun found it impossible to write out his 
remarks in full, but considered this report of bis speech as good as could be 
expected. See his letter to the editor, in ihid., Sept. 6, 1848. 

* Wilson Lumkin to Calhoun, Nov. 18, 1847, Calhoun Correspondence, 
1135-1139. 

* Speech at Abbeville, Sept. 4, Abbeville Banner, Sept. 9, quoted in 
Mercury, Sept. 12. and Greenville Mountaineer, Sept. 15, 1848. 



24 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

and belligerently declared the proper forum for debate on the 
Wilmot Proviso, "the field of battle, where our muskets can be 
the orators, powder and ball the argument. ' ' ^ 

The meeting which attracted most attention, however, and 
whose resolutions seem to have met with the greatest approval, 
was that of Fairfield District, held at Winnsboro Court House, 
November 6. The first resolution declared that the effort to 
exclude the Southern states from the territories was calculated 
to degrade them and ultimately to destroy slavery "by circum- 
scribing its limits and rendering it valueless;" that such exclu- 
sion would be a gross violation of the constitution, and "must 
tend to sever the bonds of the Union. ' ' The second characterized 
the passage of the Oregon territorial bill with the prohibition 
of slavery, "a gratuitous insult to the South." The third pro- 
tested against the injustice of the Missouri Compromise, but ex- 
pressed a willingness to acquiesce in its extension to the Pacific 
"as a final settlement of the question." The fourth resolution 
expressed attachment to the Union but declared it "unworthy 
of preservation when it shall cease to serve the great end and ob- 
ject of its creation — 'to secure equal rights and equal privileges 
to all '. ' ' The fifth declared the preference of the meeting for a 
Southern convention or concerted action by the legislatures of 
the states as the most effectual remedy, yet claimed for South 
Carolina, should the other states decline to act in concert with 
her, the right to determine for herself the extent of her griev- 
ances as well as the time, mode and measure of redress. Finally, 
the sixth resolution declared that the passage bj^ Congress of 
the Wilmot Proviso or any similar measure, or "the submission 
by Congress to such action on the part of the territories them- 
selves south of 36° 30'," would be cause for decided action on 
the part of the whole South ; and it authorized the immediate 

"Mercury, Sept. 20, 1848. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 25 

representative of Fairfield district in Congress in such event to 
vacate his seat and return home. 

The Fairfield meeting also appointed a committee of twenty- 
one to correspond throughout the South and endeavor to bring 
about concert and harmony of action. This committee, of which 
John H. Means was chairman, issued a few weeks later an Ad- 
dress to the South in which it declared that nothing short of the 
entire manumission of all slaves and the elevation of them to po- 
litical equality with their masters would ever satisfy the North, 
and urged that "self-respect, the safety of our institutions, our 
duty to posterity, all summon us to resistance, and should the 
bonds of the Union be shattered into atoms, let not the sin rest 
upon us, but upon those who by a long series of indignities, have 
goaded us into madness. ' ' ** 

The newspapers of the state were almost unanimous in urg- 
ing resistance. \The South Carolinian (Columbia) demanded that 
the South "show her enemies that whilst we sustain the Union in 
a spirit of justice and even compromise, we will never consent 
to remain in it as the oppressed bearers of burdensome exactions, 
and forever be harassed by unjust and unholy attacks upon our 
prosperity and institutions.' The Palmetto State Banner urged 
the South to prepare for the contest, "even though that contest 
be one of death and blood." The Sumter Banner hoped that 
South Carolina would take the lead in organizing a Southern 
convention to pledge ^the South to equality in the Union or se- 
cession from it.' The Spartan and the Pendleton Messenger 
urged approval of the Fairfield resolutions by other districts. 
The Abbeville Banner advocated resistance to the proposed re- 



" Proceedings of the Fairfield meeting, in Mercury, Nov. 16, 1848, ainl 
South Carolinian, Nov. 14, 1848. "Address of the Fairfield Committee of 
Correspondence to the South," in ibid., Feb. 27, 1849, and Spartan, Mar. (i, 
1849. 



26 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

striction of slavery in the territories "if needs be at a sacrifice 
of the Union."' 

Even allowing for all possible discount of these and similar 
violent outbursts, it is quite apparent that there existed in South 
Carolina a determination to resist the application of the Wilmot 
Proviso to the territories recently acquired from Mexico — at 
least to that part of them south of 86° 30'. But as to the mode 
of resistance and even as to the wisdom and desirability of much 
agitation in South Carolina on the question, there was some dif- 
ference of opinion. Calhoun worked now, of course, for united 
Southern action by means of a convention of the slave-holding 
states. He probably realized at this time, as his later activity in 
this respect clearly indicates, and others certainly did, that any 
precipitate action on the part of South Carolina, any attempt at 
assumption of leadership by her, would be detrimental to the 
end he had in view. In Charleston, the Taylor Democrats in- 
duced their opponents who had favored Cass to join with them 
in advocacy of united action on the part of the South, and ap- 
pointed a committee of correspondence to work for this result. 
It was their desire "to fan the flame" and get some other state 
to lead oft", but they went about it with caution. Charleston was 
not the state, and any definite proposal from the state was not 
desired. ® 

However, it was difficult at times to hold all in line. It was 
feared that there was danger of a serious attempt at state ac- 
tion on the part of some ambitious and impatient leaders in the 
state, and it was partly to forestall and prevent such a move- 
ment that the meeting of the Taylor men in Charleston was held 



'These ami others quoted in Mercury, Oct. 13, Nov. 21, 1848. 

* Mercury, Nov. 2, 1848; Courier, Nov. 2, 1848; H. W. Conner to Ham- 
mond, Nov. 2, 20, 1848; Hammond to Simnis, Nov. 17, 1848; Simms to 
Hammond, Nov. 24, 1848; Hammond MSS. See also Minority Eeport at the 
Fairfield meeting, South Carolinian, Nov. 14, 1848. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 27 

and its resolutions adopted. ^ The Fairfield platform contem- 
plated separate action by South Carolina should the other 
Southern states fail to join with her, and other expressions 
looking to this remedy were sufficient to warrant some alarm. 
The most outspoken advocate of independent action was 
Robert Barnwell Rhett. He had made a speech in Charleston on 
September 23, in which he demanded less talking and more ac- 
tion. ' ' Meet the question at once and forever, ' ' he said . . . . " bring 
your power to bear directly on the question — not through a 
Southern Convention which you cannot get (and which if you 
get, may only breed confusion and weakness in the South) but 
by the States Let the Southern States instruct their Sen- 
ators and request their Representatives, to leave their seats in 
Congress immediately and return home, should abolition in any 
of its forms prevail in the legislation of Congress .... and the 
South is safe. But if the South still sleeps inactive, submissive 
to aggressions — if no other state will maintain her dignity and 
her rights under the Constitution on this great question, let 
South Carolina, unaided and alone, meet the contest. She can 
force every state in the Union to take sides, for or against her. 
She can compel the alternative — that the rights of the South be 
respected, or the Union be dissolved. " ^^ To Rhett 's position the 
Mercury gave its support in December. While willing to try a 
Southern convention, it thought the plan impossible, and de- 
clared : "Separate State action, we believe to be the only means 
of redress, and there is but one state, which, by its unanimity, 
is able properly to begin and enforce this remedy. That state is 
South Carolina."" 



"Chas. Evening News, quoted in Mercury, Nov. 21, 1848; W. G. Simms 
to Hammond, Nov. 11, 1848, Hammond MSS.; H. W. Conner to Calhoun, 
Nov. 2, 1848, Calhoun Correspondence, 1184-1185. 

" Courier, Sept. 29, 1848 ; Mercury, Sept. 29, 1848. 

"Ibid., Dec. 11, 1848. 



28 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

The South Carolina legislature, meeting in November, was 
called upon to set forth officially the position of the state. Gov- 
ernor David Johnson devoted about one-fourth of his message 
at the opening of the session to a consideration of the slavery 
question. Throughout it was moderate in tone, and the recom- 
mendations therein made met the very decided approval of the 
conservative element in the state. ^'- The time for action, he 
thought, would not arrive until the question of slavery in the 
territories should be settled against the South. Until such a 
time had arrived it could not be expected that either the friends 
of Polk, before his administration had expired, or the friends of 
Taylor, after the inauguration of the new administration, would 
be willing to act in anticipation that the rights of the South 
would be invaded, for each believed that the presidential veto 
would be used against the Wilmot Proviso.. Yet every conting- 
ency ought to be provided for, and no time lost in projecting 
means to unite the slaveholding states in common action when 
the occasion should arise. Free discussion and interchange of 
opinion would greatly promote this object. No state acting 
alone in opposition to the opinion of all others could hope for 
success. Unity of time and concert of action were indispensible, 
and a Southern convention, the governor thought, was the best 
means of obtaining this. ^^ 

In the legislature resolutions expressing sentiments in ac- 
cord with those of the governor were introduced. ^* Some mem- 
bers, however, desired a bolder stand and proposed, that, in the 
event of the exclusion of slavery from the territories south of the 
line 36° 30', the representatives and senators in Congress from 
South Carolina should vacate their seats and the legislature of 



" Courier, Nov. 30, 1848. 

" S. C. Senate Journal, 1848, 26-28. 

"5. C. Senate Journal, 1848, 46; Rouse Journal, 1848, 96-97. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 29 

the state be summoned to take the necessary action. ^^ These 
resolutions indicated the differing views of those who looked to 
other states for leadership in concerted action and those who 
wished independent action and leadership by South Carolina. 
However, none of these resolutions were brought to a vote. Cal- 
houn was in Columbia on his way to Washington and was invited 
to a seat on the floor of the legislature. '^^ It can hardly be 
doubted that the action taken by the legislature was in perfect 
accord with his wishes. A joint committee on federal relations 
reported the following resolution which was adopted, after pro- 
test on the part of some few who still desired prompt and vig- 
orous action, ^^ by the unanimous vote of both houses : 

"Resolved, unanimously, That the time for discussion, by 
the slaveholding states, as to their exclusion from the territory, 
recently acquired from Mexico, has passed; and that this Gen- 
eral Assembly, representing the feelings of the State of South 
Carolina, is prepared to cooperate with her sister states in re- 
sisting the application of the principles of the Wilmot Proviso 
to such territory, at hny and every hazard." ^^ 

In Congress the hostility to slavery was growing. The Clay- 
ton Compromise, which Calhoun supported, had failed in the 
House, and the Senate had been forced to accept the Oregon 
territorial bill stripped of its extension of the Missouri Compro- 
mise line to the Pacific. Early in the second session of the Thir- 
tieth Congress, the House instructed the committee on terri- 
tories to report a bill for the organization of New Mexico and 
California and excluding slavery therefrom. ^^ On December 21, 
it adopted a resolution instructing the committee on the District 



'" S. C. Senate Journal, 1848, 13, 39; i7oM.se Journal, 1848, 95. 

^^ S. C. Senate Journal, 1848, 61; South Carolinian, Dec. 8, 1848. 

"Mercury, Dec. 14, 1848. 

" S. C. Beports and Resolutions, 1848, 147. 

^^Cong. Glohe, 30 Cong., 2 sess., 39. 



30 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

of Columbia to bring in a bill for the prohibition of the slave 
trade within the District. ^° This action caused great excite- 
ment among the Southern members who met in caucus the fol- 
lowing evening and appointed a committee to prepare an ad- 
dress to the people of the Southern states. This action resulted 
in the adoption, January 22, of a document drawn up by Cal- 
houn and only slightly modified by the caucus, ' ' The Address of 
the Southern Delegation in Congress to their Constituents. ' ' It 
was signed, however, by only two Whigs and forty-six Demo- 
crats, and was supported by the unanimous delegations of only 
two states, Mississippi and South Carolina. ^^ 

The Southern Address began with a resume of the slavery 
question in the United States since the formation of the Consti- 
tution, and attempted to point out the growing hostility to and 
increasingly dangerous aggressions upon slavery. It declared 
that if aggressions were not promptly met and ended, that if 
by the prohibition of slavery- in the territories, the free states 
were permitted soon to number three-fourths of the United 
States, the abolition of slavery would be the result. To prevent 
this the address urged union among Southerners in placing the 
slavery question above all others. It concluded: "If you become 
united and prove yourselves in earnest, the North will b? 
brought to a pause, and to a calculation of the consequences; 
and that may lead to a change of measures, and the adoption of 
a course of policy that may quietly and peaceably terminate 
this long conflict between the two sections. If it should not, 
nothing would remain for you but to stand up immovably in 
defense of rights, involving your all — your property, prosperity, 
equality, liberty and safety. ' ' ^- 

^Ibid., 84. 

" Hearon, Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850, 38-39; W, M. MeigB 
Life of Calhoun, II, 426-431. 

"Calhoun, Works, VI, 290-313. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 31 

On January 20, 1849, two days before the Southern Address 
was issued, the Virginia legislature adopted a new set of resolu- 
tions. These reaffirmed the position taken two years previously, 
and in addition they declared that the abolition by Congress of 
slavery or the slave trade in the District of Columbia would be a 
direct attack upon the institutions of the Southern states to be 
resisted at every hazard. They furthermore advanced Virginia 
to a position not yet assumed by any other Southern state, by 
requesting the governor, in the event of the passage by Congress 
of the above mentioned objectionable legislation or of the Wil- 
mot Proviso, immediately to convene the legislature "to consider 
the mode and measure of redress. " ^^ In Florida, also, the legis- 
lature pledged the state to join the other Southern states "in 

taking such measures for the defense of our rights as the 

highest wisdom of all may, whether through a Southern Conven- 
tion or otherwise, suggest and devise. ' ' ^* Even the Whig legis- 
lature of North Carolina adopted resolutions, noticeably pacific 
in tone nevertheless, declaring unjust and unconstitutional the 
abolition of slavery or the slave trade in the District of Colum- 
bia and the prohibition of slavery in the territories, and advo- 
cating the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the 
Pacific. ^•'' Missouri also expressed a willingness for such a set- 
tlement, and declared her readiness to cooperate "with the 
slaveholding states in such measures as may be deemed necessary 
for our mutual protection against the encroachments of northern 
fanaticism." ^® 

In South Carolina, public meetings in practically every 
district and parish gave prompt and emphatic endorsement to 
the Southern Address and to the resolutions of Virginia, Florida 



'"Laws of Virginia, 1848-49, 2.57. 

"Jan. 13, 1849. 30 Cong., 2 Sess., Sen. Misc. Doc, No. 58. 
"Jan. 27, 1849. 30 Cong., 2 Sess., House Misc. Doc, No. 54. 
"Mar. 10, 1849. 31 Cong., 1 Sess., Sen. Misc. Doc, No. 24. 



32 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

and North Carolina. They professed a willingness on the part 
of the people of South Carolina to cooperate with the Southern 
states, and declared that unless a firm and united stand were 
taken disunion or abject submission to wrong would soon become 
the only alternative. But they did not insist that this was now 
the only alternative, and, for the most part, they did not propose 
that any definite action be taken by South Carolina. The chief 
advance bej^ond previous positions was the taking of the first 
steps in organization for resistance. In most districts and par- 
ishes Committees of Safety and Correspondence were appointed, 
charged with the duty of reconvening the meetings when it 
should be deemed necessary and of conducting correspondence 
with other similar committees in South Carolina and other states 
for the purpose of devising proper measures for their common 
safety. -^ 

The next and obvious step after local organization had been 
made was soon taken. A Kershaw District meeting, held March 
3, at Camden, adopted a resolution requesting the various com- 
mittees of Safet}" and Correspondence to send delegates to a 
meeting in Columbia, for the purpose of devising and recom- 
mending to the people of the state a system of non-intercourse in 
trade and commerce wii h the non-slaveholding states. -^ The 
idea of non-intercourse met with little encouragement at this 
time, "'-' but two days later a Sumter meeting requested its Com- 
miittee of Safety to invite similar committees of other districts to 
send delegates to Columbia for the jnirpose of organizing a Cen- 
tral Committee of Safety. The duties of this committee should 
be to meet as often as necessary, to correspond with similar com- 
mittees in other states and with the district committees of South 
Carolina, and, should the occasion require, to take measures for 

-' See Mercury, and Courier, Feb.-Apr., 1849, passim. 

"" Mercury, Mar. 9, 1849. 

^* See, however. South Carolinian, Mar. 13, 16, 1849. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 33 

the convening of the people of South Carolina with the view of 
promoting "firm, united and concerted action" at the South. ^° 
Acting on these suggestions, the Richland Committee of Safety 
and Correspondence some weeks later invited the several district 
committees to send delegates to a meeting in Columbia to be held 
the second Monday in May. ^^ 

Calhoun's opinion as to the action the meeting should take 
was of course solicited. Non-intercourse he now objected to as 
neither dignified, nor prudent, nor efficient. He thought that the 
great object of the meeting should be the adoption of measures 
to prepare the way for a convention of the Southern states, but 
what these measures should be the meeting could best decide. 
He did suggest, however, that the organization of South Caro- 
lina and the other Southern states was an indispensable step, and 
for that and other purposes there ought to be appointed a cen- 
tral committee. ^^ 

One hundred and nine delegates from twenty-nine districts 
and parishes met in Columbia May 14, and organized with the 
election of ex-Senator D. B. Huger as chairman. The various 
proposals regarding the action the meeting should take were sub- 
mitted to a committee of twenty-one. This committee on the 
following day reported resolutions which were una^iiimously 
adopted. These were moderate in tone as compared with the 
press and many of the district meetings, and represent, so far as 
ascertainable, the deliberate opinion at this time of the people 
of the state. The first, for this reason, may well be quoted in 
full: 

''Resolved, That full and deliberate examination of the 
whole subject has forced a deep conviction on the Delegates of 

^ Sumter Banner quoted in Mercury, Mar. 10, 1849. 
" Tri-weeTcly South Carolinian, Apr. 10, 1849. 

=^ Calhoun to John H. Means, Apr. 13, 1849, Calhoun Correspondence, 
764-766. 



34 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

the Committees of Safety here assembled from the several Dis- 
tricts and Parishes of the State, that alarming and imminent 
peril is hanging over the institutions and sovereign rights of the 
slaveholding states, caused by unconstitutional and mischievous 
interference with our domestic slavery and the rights of slave- 
holders on the part of the people of the North, their Legislatures, 
Courts, and Representatives in Congress, and by withholding 
from them the aids and remedies guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion. The arguments and appeals to cease and abstain from this 
course of unprovoked wrong and insult, have been exhausted in 
unavailing efforts, which have only been followed by repetitions 
of injury, and aggressions more alarming, persevered in with an 
appearance of concert and determination, which leaves to us no 
alternative but abject and humiliating submission, or a like con- 
cert and determination in maintaining our constitutional rights 
and in defending our property and persons thus wantonly put in 
danger. That South Carolina should stand prepared, as she now 
is, to enter into council, and take that 'firm, united and concert- 
ed action ' with other Southern and South Western States in this 
emergency, which the preservation of their common honor, sov- 
ereignty and constitutional privileges demands, and to maintain 
them at every hazard and to the last extremity — and, that in 
view of this alarming condition of public affairs, a Central State 
Committee of Vigilance and Safety, to consist of five members, 
be now raised by ballot, to correspond with other Committees and 
persons in this and other States with a view to such concerted 
and united measures as may be expedient in any emergency that 
may arise." 

Other resolutions approved the Southern Address, and con- 
curred in the Virginia resolutions twice adopted by the legisla- 
ture of that state, ' ' feeling and believing that the liberties, 

honor and interest of the slaveholding states will be safe under 
her lead." And in the language of one of the Virginia resolu- 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 35 

tions of 1849, they called upon the governor of South Carolina, 
in the event of the passage of the Wilmot Proviso or any other 
measure abolishing slavery or the slave trade or admitting slaves 
to vote in the District of Columbia, to convene the legislature to 
consider the mode and measure of redress. The meeting also 
recommended that the districts and parishes preserve and per- 
fect the organization of their committees "for the purpose of 
correspondence and concert of action, and especially exert them- 
selves to spread useful information before the people, and to de- 
tect and bring to justice all offenders against our peace and in- 
stitutions." In accordance with the first resolution a central 
committee of five was appointed, consisting of F. H. Elmore, 
Chairman, Wade Hampton, D. J. McCord, James Gadsden, and 
F. W. Pickens. ^3 

The work of this meeting was decidedly conservative. It 
had been urged that some definite action be taken by it, at least 
to the extent of devising some plan of resistance looking ulti- 
mately to a separation of the Union, and of inviting the other 
Southern states to cooperate with South Carolina in this plan. ^* 
While the meeting expressed a willingness on the part of South 
Carolina to enter into council and take joint action with the 
other Southern states, it did not address itself to them or issue 
any invitation for a common conference to consider joint action. 

For some months after this meeting South Carolina was ap- 
parently very qtiiet. There was an almost total and very sud- 
den cessation of inflammatory editorials and but few contribu- 
tors to the newspapers aired their views on the question at issue. 
That there was some dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the 
meeting of delegates from the Committees of Safety was evi- 

'' The proceedings of this meeting are published in the Greenville 
Mountaineer, May 25, and the Mercury, May 15, 16, 17, 1849. 

^Tri-weekly South Carolinian, Apr. 21, 1849; resolutions of Sumter 
Committee of Safety, in ibid., Apr. 21, 1849. 



36 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

denced only by one meeting, in Sumter County, which protested 
against the indecision and apparent tameness of that body and 
declared that not only should a Southern convention have been 
urged but the time and place set for its assemblage. ^^ But if 
this feeling was at all extensive, it found exceedingly little ex- 
pression. Governor Seabrook traveled throughout the state, re- 
viwing tlie militia and telling them that they might soon be 
called upon to defend their homes, ^^ but the press of the state 
made little reference to his activities. It appeared that those 
who dictated the opinions of the press and the policy of the 
state desired that South Carolina should keep quiet while events 
which they desired developed elsewhere. Outwardly, the state 
was calm, but the leaders within the state were at work. 

The governor's activities were not clear, but they indicate 
attempts on his part to secure some measure of military pre- 
paredness on the part of the state. On June 6, he issued a cir- 
cular letter to the Major-Generals of the state militia, asking 
them to summon a board of officers to consider the defects of the 
militia system and the measures necessary for remedying them ; 
the expediency of reestablishing brigade encampments ; the ad- 
visability of erecting buildings for the keeping of arms and am- 
munition ; and finally what steps ought to be taken by the state 
to meet any emergency that might arise. ^' General D. Wallace 
of the fourth district reported as regards the last question, that 
the existing system was sufficient neither for the preservation 
of domestic peace nor for anj- em^ergency that might arise from 
"foreign invasion." He recommended that a body of about 
seven thousand well-armed minute men be created to serve as a 
nucleus about which the citizen soldiery could rally. He ap- 
proved the governor's measures to put not only Charleston but 

'^ Tri-iceekly South Carolinian, Aug. 11, 1849. 

** Correspondence of N. Y. Herald, quoted in Mercury, Oct. 22, 1849. 

" S. C. EeporU and Eesoluiions, 1849, 420-421. 



United Action Urged, 1848-1849 37 

the whole state in a position for effectual defense. ^^ Thirty 
thousand dollars were spent by the governor in the purchase of 
arms. '^ The Central Committee interested itself in the defenses 
of Charleston and conferred with the governor on the subject, 
but it is not apparent what actual steps were taken. ^'^ 

""Ibid., 451-453. 

^^ Message to the legislature, S. C. Senate Journal, 1849, 23. 

^ F. H. Elmore to Seabrook, May 30, 1849, Seabrook, MSS. 



38 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 



CHAPTER III 

The Nashville Convention 

While agitation had ceased in South Carolina, the move- 
ment for Southern resistance gathered headway in the other cot- 
ton states and led ultimately to the assembling of a convention 
of the Southern states. South Carolina had been ready for some 
months to support this movement and a call for such a conven- 
tion could easily have been secured from her. It was desirable, 
however, that some other state take the lead in this movement 
and to this end Calhoun had been directing his efforts. His rec- 
ommendation of a Southern convention, made during the few 
preceding years to various friends and supporters throughout 
the South, had not produced the desired results. More than two 
years of almost continuous agitation of the slave question in and 
out of Congress better prepared the South for the united stand 
that Calhoun desired. The Southern Address, despite the fact 
that it failed to receive the support of almost all the Whigs and 
many of the Democrats in Congress, had its effect. Mississippi, 
of all the Southern states save South Carolina, was more thor- 
oughly aroused and more nearly united on the question of re- 
sistance, and in this state, under the direction of Calhoun, the 
movement for a Southern convention was formally launched. 

Several months of agitation in Mississippi resulted in a 
meeting of the citizens of the central part of that state at Jack- 
son, May 7, 1849. Representing only a small portion of the 
state the meeting did not feel authorized to prescribe anj^ course 
of action. It therefore recommended that for this purpose a con- 
vention of all the people be held in Jackson the first Monday in 
October; and it proposed that delegates to this convention, di- 



The Nashville Convention 39 

vided equally between the two parties, be chosen by primary 
meetings of citizens in each county. ^ 

The proceedings of this meeting were sent to Calhoun by 
Collin S. Tarpley, a prominent leader of the Mississippi move- 
ment, with the request for his opinion as to what course should 
be adopted by the October convention. Calhoun replied that in 
view of the fixed determination of the Nortli to push the abolition 
question to the last extreme, there was but one promise of saving 
both the South and the Union — a Southern convention. The 
great object of this convention, he wrote, should be to issue an 
address to the other states, setting forth the causes of Southern 
grievances and admonishing them as to the consequences if they 
should not be redressed, "and to take measures preparatory to 
it, in case they should not be. The call should be addressed to all 
those who are desirous to save the Union and our institutions, 
and who, in the alternative, should it be forced upon us, of sub- 
mission or dissolving the partnership, would prefer the latter. 
No state could better take the lead in this great conservative 
movement than yours. It is destined to be the greatest of suf- 
ferers if the Abolitionists should succeed ; and I am not certain 
but by the time your convention meets, or at furthest your Legis- 
lature, that the time will have come to make the call. " - To Sen- 
ator Foote of Mississippi who likewise had asked for advice, Cal- 
houn wrote in the same strain, urging that the October conven- 
tion make the call for a Southern convention — to save the Union 
if possible, but at all events to save the South. ^ That the Missis- 
sippi Convention would act upon this suggestion was promised 
Foote by leaders of both parties in his state. * 



^ Hearon, Miss, and the Compromise of 1850, 46-50. 
^ Calhoun to C. S. Tarpley, July 9, 1849, quoted by Foote in a speech 
in the Senate, Dec. 18, 1851, Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 1 sess., appx., 52. 
' Calhoun to Foote, Aug. 3, 1849, Mercury, June 4, 1851. 
* Foote to Calhoun, Sept. 25, 1849, Calhoun Correspondence, 1204. 



40 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

In the meantime Governor Seabrook of South Carolma and 
the Central Committee of Vigilance and Safety had been sound- 
ing out official sentiment in other Southern states relative to that 
cooperative resistance which they so ardently desired and in 
which South Carolina was fully prepared to join. With the ap- 
proval of the Central Committee the governor wrote in May to a 
number of the Southern governors, outlining the impending 
danger to Southern institutions and Southern rights and inquir- 
ing as to what degree of cooperation could be expected from their 
states in measures of resistance and defense. ^ Unfortunately 
the character of the replies cannot be determined save that re- 
ceived from Governor Moseley of Florida who, though unable to 
warrant cooperation by his state because of the opinions of his 
Whig successor, soon to assume office, and the none too hostile 
feeling of many towards the Wilmot Proviso, yet hoped and felt 
convinced "that Florida would cordially and promptly cooper- 
ate with Virginia and South Carolina in any measure that those 
two States would decisively adopt and energetically pursue in 
defense of a common institution and sovereign dignity."'' At 
any event it was decided to send a confidential agent to Missis- 
sippi to be present at the convention at Jackson in October, and 
for this commission Daniel Wallace, Representative in Congress, 
was chosen. '^ Missions to other states probably were considered 



^ Elmore, Chairman of the Central Committee, wrote to Seabrook, May 
30, 1849, ' ' I do not now see any other Executive to whom to address your- 
self besides those you have already approached." Seabrook MSS. The na- 
ture of Seabrook 's letters is derived from the reply of the governor of 
Florida, endorsed, ' ' Confidential letter from Gov. Moseley of Florida May 
18, 1849." Ibid. 

" Moseley to Seabrook, op. cit. 

'"Letter from Hon. D. Wallace accepting this confidential appoint- 
ment to go to Jackson, Mississippi. June 8, 1849 ' ' to Seabrook. Seabrook 
MSS. 



The Nashville Convention 41 

and may have been sent, ® but if so, the reports on them have not 
yet been discovered. 

The Mississippi Convention met on the appointed day with 
most of the counties of the state represented. Calhoun's letters 
were shown to some of the leaders ' ' well up to Southern rights, ' ' 
but acting upon the generally accepted opinion that only failure 
could result from a course known to have been recommended 
from South Carolina, these leaders endeavored to keep secret 
from the majority of the members of the Convention and from 
the general public Calhoun's connection with the movement they 
publicly inaugurated. ° General Wallace was surprised at the 
extent of hostility towards and suspicion of anything thought to 
be of South Carolinan origin. He ' ' was told by some gentlemen 
in private that if South Carolina had attempted to lead, m the 
struggle for southern rights, the result would have been disas- 
trous for the cause. The Democrats were driven to their utmost 
skill, to keep the Whigs in the right place, and in order to do 
this, it was part of their policy to keep South Carolina as much 
out of sight as possible." The resolutions adopted by the meet- 
ing were drawn up by a former inhabitant of South Carolina 
and local leader of the NuUifiers in 1832. Because of the preju- 
dice against South Carolina, these resolutions were not offered 
in convention and then referred to the proper committee ac- 
cording to customary procedure, but were sent informally and 
directly to the committee. Reported to the Convention, they 
were adopted without a general knowledge as to their author- 
ship. It was charged that Wallace attended the Convention as 
the secret agent either of Calhoun or of South Carolina, sent to 
influence its action. Because of this suspicion he did not address 

' Elmore to Seabrook, May 30, 1849, ' ' Now as to Memminger and Ken- 
tucky — My opinion is Yes — Now if you plan to put me in requisition do it 
by putting us jointly in the commission." Ibid. 

' A. Hutchinson to Calhoun, Oct. 5, 1849, Calhoun Correspondence, 
1206. 



42 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

the Convention as had been planned, but he did accept a seat on 
the floor of the Convention. He was forced to use caution in se- 
curing interviews with the Mississippi leaders and some circum- 
spection in his conversations with them. With a view to finding 
out the nature of public sentiment in Mississippi and what 
measure of cooperation South Carolina could expect from the 
state, he conversed with Senator eJefiferson Davis, Governor Mat- 
thews whose term of office was soon to expire. General John A. 
Quitman, then the Democratic candidate for governor and sub- 
sequently elected. Chief Justice Sharkey, leader of the Whigs, 
and others. As a result, though he got no definte promises, he 
could report to Governor Seabrook that Mississippi was fully 
aroused and would be in line with South Carolina when the hour 
of struggle should come. ^° 

The action of the Convention was sufficient to warrant the 
opinion expressed by Wallace. Its resolutions took strong ground 
against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the 
prohibition of the inter-state slave trade, and the Wilmot Pro- 
viso, and recommended legislative provision for the calling of a 
state convention should any of the above measures be enacted in- 
to law by Congress. More important, however, for Calhoun and 
South Carolina was the call it made for a convention of the slave- 
holding states to be held at Nashville on the first Monday in 
June, 1850, "to devise and adopt some mode of resistance" to 
Northern aggression. ^^ 



"Wallace to Seabrook, Oct. 20, 1849, indorsed, "report of Gen. Wal- 
lace, special agent to the state of Mississippi," and Nov. 7, 1849, indorsed, 
' ' From Gen. D. Wallace in relation to his mission to Mississippi, ' ' Sea- 
brook MSS. In a letter dated June 4, 1850, printed in the Jackson South- 
ron, Wallace denied the charge that he had attended the Convention as an 
agent of South Carolina or Calhoun to influence its deliberations. See A. C. 
Cole, "The South and the Rights of Secession in the Early Fifties," in 
Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., I, 377, n. 

"Hearon, Miss, and the Comp. of 1850, 63-68. 



The Nashville Convention 43 

The South Carolina legislature was the first in the Southern 
states to meet after the Mississippi October convention. Gov- 
ernor Seabrook, in his annual message, spoke openly of the pos- 
sibility of disunion should all efforts fail to cheek consolidation 
and federal aggression. He hailed with satisfaction the call for a 
Southern convention, the paramount object of which, he said, 
was to preserve the Union in conformity to the principles of the 
Constitution, and should that prove impossible then to protect 
"at all hazards, the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of 
the members which compose it." He suggested that the gover- 
nor be empowered to call the legislature in special session, or to 
issue writs for a state convention in case the Wilmot Proviso or 
any similar measure should be enacted by Congress. To prepare 
the state for any emergency, he urged the creation of a new di- 
vision of militia fully armed and equipped for actual service, 
and appropriations of $50,000 for the purchase of arms and am- 
munition and of $30,000 as a contingent fund subject to the 
draft of the governor. ^^ 

On the evening of December 7 the members of the legisla- 
ture met in legislative caucus, and hence unofficially, to consider 
the Mississippi call for a Southern convention. The caucus en- 
dorsed the movement and expressed its confidence that the peo- 
ple of South Carolina would support any measure which the 
convention might propose. It recommended that the people of 
the state meet in their respective parishes and districts the fol- 
lowing April to elect delegates who should meet at some conveni- 
ent point in each Congressional district and there choose from 
each of such districts two delegates to represent South Carolina 
at Nashville. Three days later the caucus chose as delegates at 
large to the Southern Convention, Langdon Cheves, Franklin H. 



"Message of the Governor, Nov. 27, 1849, <S. C. Senate Journal, 1849, 
10-28. 



44 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Elmore, Kobert W. Barnwell, and James H. Hammond. ^'^ 
Cheves was the former president of the Second Bank of the 
United States. He was a planter, long retired from public life, 
and had recently refused a seat in the United States Senate. In 
1832 he had opposed nullification and advocated a Southern con- 
vention as the proper means of securing redress and at the same 
time preventing violence and disunion. In 1844, when Rhett 
was leading a movement for separate state action against the 
tariff, Cheves wrote a lengthy and fiery letter on disunion to the 
editor of the Mercury. In this he admitted that the tariff was 
oppressive, but abolition, he declared, was the great issue that 
the South would have to meet, and to meet it the South should 
not fear to face disunion. Separate state action he opposed, 
and urged South Carolina to work for action in cooperation with 
other Southern states. ^* Elmore, a former member of Congress, 
was president of the Bank of the State of South Carolina. " 
Barnwell was formerly president of South Carolina College. ^^ 
Hammond was a planter, who since the expiration of his term as 
governor of the state had not engaged actively in politics. In 
1832, as a nullifier he had aided in the preparations for armed 
resistance to federal authority, and twelve years later when gov- 
ernor of the state he had urged opposition to the tariff and 
abolition, by physical force if necessary. But in 1848 he doubted 
the constitutionality of nullification. ^^ 

In regular session the South Carolina legislature refused 
to sanction the military measures proposed by Governor Sea- 



" Columbia Tri-Weeldy SoittJi Carolinian, Dee. 8, 11, 1849. 

"C. S. Boucher, The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 199- 
200; Mercury, Sept. 11, 1844; J. B. O'Neall, Bench and Bar in South Car- 
olina, I, 137. 

'•■O'Neall, Bench and Bar, II, 95-96. 

"'■ National Cyclopaedia of America Biography, XI, 32. 

''Boucher, Nullifica.iion in S. C, 249, 269, 276, 279; S. C. Senate 
Journal, 1844, 17-20; Hammond to Simms, Jan. 14, 1848, Hammond MSS. 



The Nashville Convention 45 

brook and appropriated only $7,500 for the purchase of arms. ^' 
It did accept the other proposal made by the governor to the 
extent of providing "in the event of the passage by Congress of 
the Wilmot Proviso, or an,y kindred measure, that his Excellency 
the Governor be reiiuested forthwith to convene the legislature, 
in order to take such steps as the rights, interest and honor ot 
this State, and of the whole South, shall demand. " ^^ It further- 
more adopted a resolution of full response to the sentiments of 
the South Carolina delegation in Congress as expressed by one 
of them, "that if slavery be abolished in the District of Colum- 
bia by Congress, or the Wilmot Proviso be adopted, the Union 
will be dissolved. " 20 

The action of the South Carolina legislature on the call for 
a Southern convention was in complete accord with the prevail- 
ing sentiments of all factions within the state. It signified a 
willingness, which had long existed, for the participation by 
South Carolina in cooperative measures for the defense of 
Southern rights, and it provided for that cooperation by means 
of delegates, unofficially chosen by the legislature and by the 
people in their primary assemblies. Beyond this it wisely did 
not go. It did not attempt to dictate or even give expression to 
its views ?!s to the proper action that should be taken by the 
Nashville Convention. For the time being the state-actionists 
were silent, for united Southern resistance seemed probable and 
state action had been advocated by them chiefly because they had 
believed any other mode of resistance impossible. Open opposi- 
tion to the proposed convention there was none. There was 
throughout the state a noticeable dimunition of agitation as 
compared with the corresponding months of the two preceding 
years. During the time intervening between the appointment of 

^^ S. C. Reports and Eesolutions, 1849, 310. 
''Ibid., 313, 314. 
^Ibid., 414. 



46 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

the Central Committee of Vigilance and Safety in May and the 
Mississippi Convention of October, there was an almost com- 
plete silence on the well worn topics of Northern aggression and 
Southern resistance. Following the call issued from Mississippi 
there was some discussion of a Southern convention but little of 
the violent agitation of preceding years. There was no need to 
agitate in South Carolina in favor of the Southern Convention, 
and violent opposition to Clay's proposed compromise did not 
develop until late in the spring of 1850. 

The purpose of the Nashville Convention and the action it 
should take were variously viewed. In the Columbia South 
Carolinian the proposal was made that the Convention nominate 
Calhoun for the presidene3^ Such lack of understanding drew 
forth immediate protests from other papers in the state and 
earned a Avell merited rebuke from Calhoun. ^^ The conserva- 
tive Charleston Courier, which for the most part had maintained 
a dignified silence and had always spoken with moderation on 
the issues about which most other South Carolina papers raved, 
came out in hearty support of the Nashville Convention. I The 
object of this Convention, it thought, should be to voice "the 
united resolve of the South no longer to submit to aggression, 
outrage and insult, but on the contrary, to uphold her institu- 
tions, her rights and her sacred honor, 'peaceably if she can, 
forcibly if she must.' "/ The result of such a demand would be 
a "peaceful acquiescence in the rightful demands of the united 
South — or a peaceful separation of a family, in which there is 
an end of concord. '\^" For once the Mercury spoke wisely and 
moderately. It saw no need to go beyond the resolutions of 



^^ Mercury, Nov. 14, 15, 1849; Courier, Nov. 15, 1849; Spartan, Nov. 22, 
1849; Calhoun to editor of Carolinian, Nov. 16, 1849, in Tri-Weekly South 
Carolinian, May 25, 1850; Calhoun to Hammond, Dec. 7, 1849, Calhoun Cor- 
respondence, 776. 

" Courier, Oct. 31, Nov. 7, 15, 30, 1849. 



The Nashville Convention 47 

Mississippi; South Carolina was willing and waiting for South- 
ern defense of honor and interest; it was better that she cheer- 
fully accept the leadership of others in the common cause rather 
than by further advance endanger the success of the Southern 
Movement. ^^ 

There were some papers in the state, however, not so pru- 
dent as the Mercury nor so moderate in opinion as the Courier. 
These could not restrain their hatred of the Union. One editor 
quite frankly admitted this sentiment : ' ' Let us not reluctantly 
choose between the alternatives presented, of union, infamy and 
ruin on the one hand, or disunion on the other. Give us the lat- 
ter; the sooner the better." And again, "We hold it to be the 
sacred duty of the South, enjoined by every sentiment of pa- 
triotism, honor and interest, to demand a dissolution of the 
Union. "^* Another inspired his readers with these sentiments: 
" To us of the South, the Union as it is, is a curse and not a bless- 
ing. It is made an engine of oppression . . . \ We have 
every faith that the South will either have their rights under 
the Constitution or dissolve the Union.*' -^ 

During March and April public meetings of citizens were 
held in the districts and parishes at which delegates were chosen, 
in accordance with the advice of the members of the legislature, 
to attend the conventions in each congressional district by which 
the delegates to Nashville should be selected. The resolutions of 
these primary meetings, representing the opinions of those in- 
terested enough to participate, were not violent in tone, nor did 
they attempt to dictate the action that the Nashville Convention 
should take. But they did declare the opinion that either their 
rights as they understood them should be protected and guaran- 
teed or a dissolution of the Union ought to be effected. In so 

^* Mercury, Nov. 14, 15, Dec. 1, 1849. 
-* Spartan, Jan. 24, Feb. 21, 1850. 
" Winyah Observer, Jan. 19, 1850. 



48 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

far as the terms, "dissolution of the Union" and "disunion" 
were more openly used instead of the vaguer "resistance at all 
hazards and to the last extremity." these meetings represent an 
advance over the previous position assumed by the people of the 
state. Yet even at times when "disunion" was frankly spoken 
of as the alternative to "submission" there was also expressed 
a desire and a hope that a settlement of the whole question at 
issue between the sections might 'be made whereby the rights of 
the South would be guaranteed, the Constitution maintained, 
and the Union preserved. On the other hand there was odca- 
sionally expressed the extreme opinion that nothing but an entire 
separation from that section which had "trampled under foot 
the rights of the South" could afford a remedy for the griev- 
ances of the slaveholding states. -" 

Tlie meetings of delegates in the various congressional dis- 
tricts, held May 6, 1850, contented themselves with the election 
of delegates to Nashville and refrained from adopting the custo- 
mary reports and resolutions. Of these delegates the most 
proiviinent were: R. Barnwell Rbett, F. AV. Pickens, Civil War 
governor, R. F. W. Allston, Governor of South Carolina, 1856- 
58, James Chesnut, United States senator in 1860. and D. F. 
Jamison, president of the secession convention of 1860. -' 

Calhoun lost no opportunity, he wrote James H. Hammond, 
"to give the great cause an impulse." He urged upon his cor- 
respondents in various states the necessity of backing what he 
termed ' ' the Mississippi movement, ' ' and of sending delegates to 
the Nashville Convention. It was a subject uppermost in his 
mind and its failure to meet he would have considered a great, if 
not a fatal, misfortune. By January he felt assured that the 

^^ Mercury, Mar. 21, 27, Apr. 13, 16, 18, 29, 1850; Spartan, Mar. 14; 
Tri-Weekly Soiith Carolinian, Mar. 5, 1850; Winyah Observer, Apr. 10, 
1850. 

"List of delegates in Mercury, May 11, 1850; Spartan, May 16, 1850. 



The Nashville Convention 49 

convention would meet. -® For a time it seemed that Calhoun 's 
hope for a united South on the slavery question was about to be 
fulfilled. Following the call issued by the Mississippi October 
Convention and the response thereto by the members of the 
South Carolina legislature, in Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas, the legislatures endorsed 
the movement and provided for the election of delegates. In ad- 
dition, the legislatures of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and 
Virginia provided for the calling of state conventions in case 
Congress should pass the Wilmot Proviso or other measures 
deemed hostile to the interests of slavery. -^ 

It has been charged against Calhoun that he was desirous of 
destroying the Union. His real desire was to preserve the Union, 
if at the same time he could preserve what he considered to be 
the rights of the South. He was undeniably first a citizen of 
the South and only secondly a citizen of the United States. His 
correspondence gives constant proof of this. On December 27, 
1846, he wrote to his daughter, ' ' I desire above all things to save 
the whole ; but if that cannot be, to save the portion where Provi- 
dence has east my lot, at all events.'/ He believed that unless 
the North became convinced that the South was in earnest and 
put an end to the attacks upon Southern institutions, the time 
would come when nothing could save the South but a dissolu- 
tion of the Union./ He desired a Southern convention to give ex- 
pression to these ideas, and to force upon the North the convic- 
tion that the Union was in danger and would be dissolved unless 
the demands of the South with regards to the slavery controversy 
were acceded to. 

'* Calhoun to A. P. Calhoun, Oct. 22, 1849; to Hevschel V. Johnson, 
Nov. 1, 1849; to Hammond, Dec. 7, 1849, Jan. 4, 1850, CaUioun Corre- 
spondence, 772, 773, 775, 778. 

'°H. V. Ames, "Calhoun and the Secession Movement," in Old Penn, 
XVI, 247; D. T. Herndon, "The Nashville Convention of 1850", in Pub. 
of Ala. Hist. Soc, Transactions, V, 213-216. 



50 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

In the summer of 1849 he still thought that the Union might 
be preserved, though he feared that perhaps the process of see- 
tionalization had gone too far for any hope of a continuance of 
the political connection between North and South. In August 
of that year he wrote to Senator Foote of Mississippi : " In con- 
sidering it [a Southern Convention], I assume that the first 
desire of every true-hearted Southern man is, to save, if pos- 
sible, the Union, as well as ourselves ; but if both cannot be, then 
to save ourselves at all events. Such is my determination, as far 
as it lies in my power. Fortunately for us, the road which leads 
to both, yet lies in the same direction. We have not reached the 
fork yet, if we are ever to do it. Without concert of action on 
the part of the South, neither can be saved ; b.y it, if it be not too 
long delayed, it is possible both yet maj^ be." ^° 

Early in 1850 Calhoun seems to have become convinced that 
a permanent settlement of the whole slavery question such as he 
considered essential for a continuance of the slaveholding states 
in the Union could not be made. ^^ He hoped that the debate in 
Congress would convince the South that it could not with safet}'' 
remain in the Union as things then stood and that there was 
little or no prospect of any change for the better. ^- Compro- 
mise, any settlement short of his terms, was unacceptable to him. 
The Wilmot Proviso he had opposed only as one phase of the 
whole slaverj' controversy. It had raised the issue between the 
sections, but to Calhoun's mind the territorial aspect of the ques- 
tion was only one and not perhaps the most important aspect of 
the whole question of slavery. He had used the Wilmot Proviso 
to arouse the South, but in the Southern Address he had sought 
to broaden the basis for the Southern movement by including in 



"* Calhoun to Foote, Aug. 3, 1849, Mercury, June 4, 1851. 
''Calhoun to Mrs. T. G. Clemson, Feb. 24, 1850, Calhoun Correspond- 
ence, 783. 

"Calhoun to Hammond, Feb. 16, 1850, ibid., 781. 



The Nashville Convention 51 

that manifesto of Southern grievances every evidence he could 
find of hostility to and aggressions upon slavery. He had been 
convinced for more than twenty years that the institution of 
slavery was in danger and that the South, rather than merely to 
repel attacks, should force the issue. Let the outposts of slavery 
be carried and the institution would be doomed. In 1850 the 
time for action had come ; to force the issue was the idea con- 
stantly in his mind. Nothing short of a permanent settlement 
of the question within the Union or a dissolution of the Union 
was his desire. 

"Nothing short of the terms I propose, can settle it finally 
and permanently," he wrote just three weeks before his death. 
"Indeed, it is difficult to see how two peoples so different and 
hostile can exist together in one Unon. ' ' ^^ The terms Calhoun 
proposed were given to the country in his famous speech of the 
fourth of March. ^^ Too weak to deliver it himself, it was read 
to the Senate by his friend Senator Mason of Virgina. In this 
carefully written exposition of his views Calhoun stressed the all 
important fact, to him, that the equilibrium between the two 
sections had been destroyed; that consequently all branches of 
the government were in the control of the North ; and that as a 
result, in all questions of vital interest between the sections, the 
South would be sacrificed. To Calhoun, of course, the North was 
the free states, the South, the slave states. Slavery, which the 
people of the South felt bound "by every consideration of in- 
terest and safety to defend," was the vital question. He de- 
clared that the ultimate aim of the anti-slavery movement in the 
North was the total abolition of the institution of slavery in all 
the states, and that unless some decisive measures were taken to 

** Calhoun to T. G. Clemson, Mar. 10, 1850, Calhoun Correspondence, 
784. On the general question of Calhoun 's opinions and purposes in the 
last year of his life, see ibid., 763-783, passim. 

** Calhoun, Works, IV, 542-573. 



52 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

prevent this, unless a full and final settlement were made, the 
South would be forced "to choose between abolition and seces- 
sion. ' ' The terms of this final settlement Calhoun stated : equal 
rights in the territories, faithful fulfillment of the stipulations 
relative to fugitive slaves, cessation of anti-slavery agitation, 
and a constitutional amendment restoring to the South the power 
of protecting herself that she had possessed before the destruc- 
tion of the equilibrium between the sections. The exact nature 
of his proposed amendment Calhoun did not here disclose, but a 
posthumous work explains in general his idea that the end he 
sought might be effected by the creation of a dual executive, its 
members representing the respective sections and each possessed 
of the veto power over all legislation. ^^ Calhoun closed his 
speech with an appeal for a frank avowal on both sides of what 
was intended to be done towards a settlement of the questions at 
issue. To the senators from the North he addressed himself : " If 
3^ou, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle 
them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so ; and let 
the states we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. 
If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and we 
shall know v\^hat to do, when you reduce the question to submis- 
sion or resistance." 

This was Calhoun's last important speech in the Senate. 
He had spoken frankly and presented to the Senate and the 
country his alternative to a dissolution of the Union, and it was 
probably his hope that it would similarly be presented by the 
Southern Convention. He stated frequently enough in his cor- 
respondence his desire that the Southern Convention present the 
alternative of justice to the South, as he conceived it, or a dis- 
solution of the Union, but whether on the exact terms as out- 
lined in his final speech it is impossible to say. He was extreme- 

'^ " A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United 
States", in Calhoun, Works, I, 111-406, see pp. 391-392. 



The Nashville Convention 53 

ly anxious that some of the delegates to that convention visit 
Washington on their way to Nashville and consult there with 
members from the South. ^® Shortly before his death he began 
to dictate a series of resolutions, evidently intended for this con- 
vention, which were never completed. They were directed 
against the exclusion of slavery from the territories and the ad- 
mission of California into the Union ; and the final resolution of 
the uncompleted draft reads : "Resolved that the time has arrived 
when the said States [i. e., "the States composing the Southern 
portion of th Union"] owe it to themselves and the other States 
comprising the Union to settle fully and forever all the questions 
at issue between them."^^ This was Calhoun's final and well 
matured opinion. A few days later, on March 31, he died, leav- 
ing South Carolina without a leader strong enough to prevent 
the bitter internal struggle into which she was destined soon to 
fall. 

The attitude of Calhoun represented probably that of the 
majority of those in his state who had any opinions on the ques- 
tion of union and disunion. It may be true, as Judge Beverly 
Tucker of Virginia wrote to James H. Hammond, that Calhoun, 
instead of being the moving cause of excitement in South Caro- 
lina, as many thought, restrained it and restrained himself. '^ 

*" Calhoun to Hammond, Feb. 16, 1850, Calhoun Correspondence, 781. 

" Calhoun Correspondence, 785-787 ; Joseph A. Seoville, to whom Cal- 
houn dictated the resolutions, did not know whether they were for the Sen- 
ate or for Nashville. Seoville to Hammond, Apr. 18, 1850, Hammond MSS. 
Their wording is sufficient evidence that they were not intended for the Sen- 
ate. A copy M'as sent to Hammond but they do not seem to have been used 
at Nashville. 

" Calhoun ' ' died nobly, and his last act redeems all the errors of his 

life I have heard of those who rejoiced in his death as providential. I 

hope it may prove so, but not in the way intended by them. They con- 
sidered him as the moving cause of excitement in South Carolina. You and 
I know that he restrained it and restrained himself. When he went home in 
March, '33, he was prepared to say all that he said in his last speech and 
much more had others been prepared to hear it. I know it from his own 
lips " May 7, 1850, Hammond MSS. 



54 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

But such restraint for the past ten years at least had been ap- 
plied with a view to prevent assumption by the state of a posi- 
tion too far in advance of the other slaveholding states. The 
position he assumed in his last speech in the Senate earned the 
praise of those who had privately condemned him for his back- 
wardness. Certainly there was but little difference in the posi- 
tion of a man who demanded impossible conditions for the pre- 
servation of the Union and those who believed that conditions 
were such as to warrant the immediate withdrawal of the South- 
ern states from the Union. Regarding the feeling in South Caro- 
lina at this time, a traveler reported to Judge Tucker that he 
met within the State but one man not ripe for disunion and un- 
prepared to reject any terms of compromise which should leave 
the South, as Tucker said, "without excuse for the great step 
on which our best interests depend. "^^ The one exception to 
this sweeping and perhaps hopefully exaggerated statement was 
James Louis Petigru. 

Since the days of Nullification the Unionists in South Caro- 
lina had constantly decreased in number until in 1850 there 
were but a handful of men who were willing to preserve the 
Union at almost any cost. Petigru was one of the most uncom- 
promising of these. Joel R. Poinsett was another. The former 
was a Whig, the latter a Democrat. The correspondence that 
took place between Richard Yeadon, Unionist in 1832 and for- 
mer editor of the Charleston Courier, and Poinsett, illustrates 
fully the positions of those of the old Union party who remained 
true to the Union and those who had reached the conclusion, 
however unwillingly, that its dissolution might be necessary. 

Yeadon wrote Poinsett on March 1, 1850 that the Charleston 
leaders wished to send him as a delegate to Nashville, "having 
in view the preservation, if practicable, of our mighty and glor- 



' Ibid. 



The Nashville Convention 55 

ious union, but the assertion and maintenance, at all hazard and 
in any event, of the just rights and constitutional equality of 
the Southern States." Poinsett replied expressing a willingness 
to attend the Nashville Convention, "provided its objects are 
'limited to the preservation of our mighty and glorious union 
and the constitutional equality of the Southern states.' But," 
he continued, "if 'their assertion and maintenance at all haz- 
ards and in any event' be meant to imply the dissolution of the 
Union of the United States, I feel constrained to declare that I 
never will by any act of mine sanction such an alternative." 
And when informed that a public avowal of such sentiments 
would make impossible his election as a delegate, he flatly re- 
fused to serve. In explanation he continued : " I have been long 
aware that the district and state are prepared for the last ex- 
tremity; and, as I conscientiously believe such a measure will 
lead to immediate civil war and too probably terminate in de- 
feat and humiliation, it would be wrong in me to yield to the 
torrent of public opinion and by any act of mine aid in the 
perpetration of our own destruction, ... If the revolu- 
tion comes, for there can be no peaceable secession or dissolution 
of the union, I am ready to take my part and stand among the 
sons of the South in the ranks or in organizing our defenses but 
without hope." *° A little later Poinsett refused to permit him- 
self to be considered as a possible delegate from the fourth Con- 

"Eiehard Yeadon to Joel R. Poinsett, Mar. 1, 1850; Poinsett to Yea- 
don, Mar. 6, 18, 1850. In a draft of his letter of Mar. 18, Poinsett wrote 
and then crossed out the following: "I may be wrong but it appears to me 
that the same minds and the same views which governed them at the ban- 
quet which drew from the great man [Jackson] this celebrated sentiment 
[Our Union, it must be preserved] are again at work for evil. They are 
nearer the attainment of their object now than they were then ; but they are 
the more near to their own destruction; for the revolution will surely over- 
whelm them in its mighty billows." Poinsett MSS. Jackson's famous 
toast was given at the Jefferson birthday dinner of the South Carolina 
group in Washington, Apr. 15, 1830. See J. S. Bassett, Life of Andrew 
Jackson, II, 554-555. 



56 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

gressional district. Unable to sanction the alternative of disso- 
lution in the last resort, which the people of Marion and Darling- 
ton had publicly avowed, he however made no public opposition 
to the movement at this time, for he did not desire to weaken in 
the slightest degree the effect of the demonstration on the part of 
the South. *^ Nor did anyone in South Carolina now speak out 
in opposition to the Nashville Convention and the dissolution 
of the Union which was expected to follow it. 

The effect upon old Union men of anti-slavery agitation is 
illustrated by the position that Yeadon took. "Ardent as has 
been and still is my devotion to the Union — , ' ' he wrote, ' ' deeply 
as I would deplore its dissolution as a dire calamity to our coun- 
try, — South as well as North — and to mankind — yet am I con- 
vinced that the passage of the Wilmot Proviso, or any equiva- 
lent hostile and unconstitutional action of Congress, on the ques- 
tion of slavery, would be a justifying cause of disunion, and im- 
pose it on the South as a duty and a necessity. If we submit to 
such an aggression . . . we will but encourage our polit- 
ical and fanatic foes to put their feet on our necks and accom- 
plish our destruction and our ruin."'*- Ex-governor David 
Johnson, another old Unionist leader, likewise could not but de- 
spair of the Union because of the war against slave owners. *^ 

Of quite another type of opinion were those who may be 
termed disunionists per se, men who had no wish to save the 
Union, who not only would have welcomed disunion but who were 
working hopefully for disunion and looking forward to a slave- 
holding Southern confederacy. One of these was James H. 
Hammond, whom his friend "William Gilmore Simms hoped to 
see succeed Calhoun in the Senate and help "bring on the catas- 



" Poinsett to E. Waterman, Mar. 30, 1850, Poinsett MSS. 

" Yeadon to Poinsett, Mar. 9, 1850, Poinsett MSS. 

** David Johnson to J. S. Sims, May 6, 1850, Spartan, May 30, 1850. 



The Nashville Convention 57 

trophe. ' ' ** From Virginia Judge Tucker urged that South Car- 
olina should secede and form the nucleus of a new Confederacy, 
and proposed to Hammond that the Nashville Convention be 
used to demand impossible conditions for a continuance of the 
Union and thus force the withdrawal of the Southern states. *' 
The proposal of J. M. Walker, Charleston lawyer, former mem- 
ber of the state legislature, and non-slaveowner, was that the 
Nashville Convention "should assume at once legislative author- 
ity and under the same responsibilities as rested upon the first 
Congress, declare independence. ' ' *'' 

Hammond thought that the Union always had been and al- 
waj^s w^ould be a disadvantage to the South and that the sooner 
the South got rid of it the better. He feared abolition and the 
reduction of the South to the condition of Hayti, should she re- 
main in the Union save as the equal of the North, and this equal- 
ity he did not believe it possible to obtain. The formation of a 
Southern confederacy he thought desirable and ultimately in- 
evitable, and he saw in the abolitionists the instruments of God 
working towards this purpose. He saw in the North and in the 
South two distinct "Social Compacts" and believed that in- 
evitably they must separate. He believed that the time for sep- 
aration had come but he thought that the Nashville Convention, 
being a non-official body, should take little action beyond calling 
a "General Congress of the South." His chief fear was that 
before action could be taken the North would give way and 
promise enough temporarily to appease the South and defer dis- 
union. *^ 



" Simms to Hammond, (Apr.) 1850, Hammond MSS. 

^' Tucker to Hammond, Dec. 27, 1849, Feb. 8, 1850, ibid. 

*° J. M. Walker to Hammond, Feb. 25, 1850, ibid. 

«J. H. Hammond to Calhoun, Feb. 19, 1849, Mar. 5, 1850, Calhoun 
Correspondence, 1193-94, 1210-12; J. H. Hammond to Major Hammond, 
Feb. 1, 1850, to Lewis Tappan, July 9, 1850, to W. H. Trescott, Aug. ^5, 
1850, Hammond MSS. 



58 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Such was the feeling in South Carolina just prior to the 
meeting of the Nashville Convention. In other Southern states 
the introduction of Clay's compromise plan and the prospect of 
some adjustment of the questions at issue without the enactment 
of the Wilmot Proviso somewhat lessened the disunion sentiment. 
Especially was this true with the Whigs. But the proposed com- 
promise was almost unanimously condemned in South Carolina. 
A meeting of the citizens of Charleston unanimously declared 
that the measures reported in the United States Senate "pur- 
porting to be a Compromise" ought not to receive the sanction 
and support of the South, and condemned individually each pro- 
vision of that report. Some other public meetings took similar 
action. Most of the newspapers, the Courier excepted and there- 
fore denounced by the others, found nothing in the proposed 
compromise that could afford any satisfaction to the South. 
Some demanded the extension of the Missouri Compromise line 
as the only acceptable settlement, while others declared that no 
compromise would be respected by the North, and demanded 
disunion as the only final settlement. Specifically each of the 
five propositions included in Clay's plan met with opposition. 
The admission of California as a free state, with her ' ' illegally ' ' 
organized constitution, was termed a practical enforcement of 
the Wilmot Proviso "in a more odious and insulting form. ' ' A 
truer reason for opposition was given when it was pointed out 
that the admission of California would give to the free states 
two additional senators and two representatives. Calhoun in his 
last speech had declared that the admission of California was 
the test question, and would give proof whether the North was 
willing to grant equality to the South or proposed to overthrow 
completely the sectional balance of power. The plan for the ter- 
ritorial organization of New Mexico and Utah was found unsat- 
isfactory because it did not guarantee the protection of slavery, 
and because the North would never admit those territories save 



The Nashville Convention 59 

as free states. The settlement of the territorial disputes between 
Texas and the United States was denounced as an abolitionist 
scheme for making free soil and ultimately free states of terri- 
tory in which slavery existed by Texan law. The abolition of 
the slave trade was of course declared an unconstitutional attack 
on the outposts of slavery. Even the proposed new fugitive- 
slave law was objected to because it permitted the escaped slave 
a jury trial, and at best it would never be enforced. *^ Clearly 
South Carolina did not desire to compromise. 

Shortly before the Nashville Convention met, two members 
of Congress from South Carolina publicly advised their constit- 
uents as to the situation in Washington and gave their personal 
views on the proposed compromise. Representative Burt, who 
had long since despaired of securing even the Missouri Compro- 
mise line, reported that there was no hope of a satisfactory or 
even any adjustment of the sectional issues, and declared his con- 
viction that Northern hostility to slavery was more ferocious, 
more universal, more confident of its strength, and more assured 
of its victim than ever before. *° General Wallace denounced the 
Clay compromise measures, dwelt at length upon the social and 
political equality of the two races that would result from aboli- 
tion, and declared that the people of the South had nothing to 
hope from the government of the United States. '° 

The Nashville Convention met June 3, 1850, and elected 



"Charleston Meeting, Mercury, May 21, 1850; Meeting in Union, June 
3, Spartan, June 13, 1850; South Carolinian, May 14, 16, June 1, 1850; 
Spartan, May 23, 1850; Winyah Observer, June 19, 1850; Mercury, May 
20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 1850. 

** A. Burt to F. W. Pickens and Drayton Nance, delegates to Nashville, 
in Mercury, May 28, 1850. 

" D. Wallace to the People of the 1st Congressional district of South 
Carolina, ibid., June 5, 1850, Sparatn, June 20, 1850. 



60 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Judge William L. Sharkej^ of Mississippi, president. ^^ Dele- 
gates from nine states were present, Virginia, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and 
Tennessee. In the South Carolina delegation of eighteen there 
was only one vacancy. Elmore, appointed to Calhoun's place in 
the Senate, had died late in May. More advanced in sentiment 
than the other delegations, that of South Carolina did not take a 
very prominent part in the proceedings on the floor of the con- 
vention. An exception to this was the speech by Pickens, ending 
with this sentiment, "Equality now! Equality forever! or In- 
dependence." Rhett wrote the address of the convention to the 
Southern states, and Hammond, with some difficulty, got it 
through the committee and adopted by the convention. The ad- 
dress reviewed at length the aggressions of the North and the 
growing hostility to slavery, and declared that the position of the 
South in the Union was growing from bad to worse. It con- 
demned the compromise measure then before Congress, but it ex- 
pressed a willingness on the part of the South to accept an ex- 
tension of the Missouri Compromise line. A long series of reso- 
lutions adopted by the convention set forth the familiar doctrine 
of the equal rights of the states in the teruitories and the newer 
doctrine of the duty of the Congress to protect those rights, but 
proposed "as an extreme concession" a division of the territory 
between the sections along the line of 36° 30'. The final resolu- 
tion declared that the convention did not "feel at liberty to dis- 
cuss the methods suitable for a resistance to measures not yet 
adopted." But it was agreed that in the event of the failure of 
Congress to meet the demands of the convention, it should meet 

" The most complete account of the Nashville Convention is Herndon, 
"The Nashville Convention of 1850", in Ala. Hist. Soc. Transactions, V, 
203-237. See also St. George L. Sioussat, "Tennessee, the Compromise of 
1850, and the Nashville Convention", in Miss. Valley Hist. Eev., II, 311- 
347 ; and F. Newberry, ' ' The Nashville Convention and Southern Senti- 
ment of 1850", in So. Atl. Quarterly, XI, 259-273. 



The Nashville Convention 61 

again after the adjournment of Congress. On June 12, 1850, 
the first session of the Nashville Convention came to a close. " 
In the opinion of Hammond, its results did not amount to much 
save that it would strengthen the hands of the South in Congress. 
"The great point," he wrote, "is that the South has met, has 
acted with great harmony in a nine days' convention, and above 
all has agreed to meet again." ^^ 



"Pamphlet: "Eesohitions and Address adopted by the Southern Con- 
vention held at Nashville "; Mercury, June 11, 12, 1850; Ames, State 

Documents, 263-269, 

"Hammond to Simms, June 16, 1850, Hammond MSS. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Compromise Rejected 

The work of the Nashville Convention was not such as to 
arouse any great degree of enthnsiasm in the hearts of the dis- 
unionists. In South Carolina its recommendations of a division 
of the territories between the sections by the line of 36° 30' was 
magnified into an "Ultimatum of the South." ^ Fourth of July 
toasts offered throughout the state were violent in tone and 
frankly in favor of disunion, should Congress pay no heed to 
the recommendations of the Convention. One may illustrate: 
"Bring what it will, Revolution or Disunion, still we say, 36 30 
and nothing less."^ The newspapers accepted the work of th^ 
convention, though the more radical of them did so with no 
great enthusiasm. The Mercury thought that the proceedings at 
Nashville received the entire approbation and the zealous sup- 
port of the people of Charleston, but it took pains to declare that 
any settlement short of the Missouri Compromise line would 
' ' blow up the confederacy. ' ' '"■ The Spartan rather reluctantly 
supported the proposal as an extreme concession by the South, 
and as affording, if accepted, a temporary respite from assaults ; 
but it believed an ultimate separation of the sections both desir- 
able and inevitable. * Public meetings heard from the members 
of the South Carolina delegation and declared the Missouri Com- 
promise line the utmost concession that the South would make. 



' South Carolinian, June 18, 1850. 

^ This sentiment offered at Beaufort. Proceedings of the meeting in 
Mercury, July 12, 1850. 
^June 21, 22, 1850. 
'July 11, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 68 

Rhett had hardly returned from Nashville before he began 
a series of fiery speeches in advocacy of a dissolution of the 
Union. At Charleston, on June 21, he declared that the Nash- 
ville Convention had proffered settlements which the North 
would not accept, and on which the South would not yield. He 
prophesied that the Nashville Convention would rank as one of 
those great events which mark the beginning of mighty changes. 
"We are in the beginning of a revolution!" he exclaimed. Af- 
ter dwelling at length upon the disadvantages of the Union to 
the South, he pictured the prosperity and the advantages to 
trade and commerce that would follow the free-trade policy of 
an independent South. And true to his previous tendencies 
towards separate state action, Rhett declared that should all 
other states desert her, South Carolina would struggle alone for 
liberty and independence. ' In the following month, on July 24, 
Rhett spoke in St. Helena Parish on the probable and possible 
destinies of a Southern confederacy. "Treason" had taken 
strong root in this section, the reporter wrote, and Rhett 's senti- 
ments were received with approbation. « In August, Rhett and 
Yancey were preaching disunion in Georgia. ' Early in Sep- 
tember Rhett was again in South Carolina and on the fourth day 
of that month addressed six hundred citizens of St. Bartholo- 
mew's Parish. He recited the usual Southern rights and South- 
ern wrongs ; he urged a Southern confederacy ; he scouted the 
idea of war with the North, and predicted that soon Northern 
men would be seeking admission into the new union. The fol- 
lowing enlightening account of a part of Rhett 's speech was thus 
reported : 

"Speaking of the possibility of the emancipation of slavery, 

^ Speech of R. B. Rhett, June 21, Mercury, July 20, 1850. 
* Palmetto Post, quoted in Mercury, Aug. 16, 1850. 
' James A. Meriwether to Howell Cobb, Aug.' 24, 1850, Toom-bs, Ste- 
phens, and Cobb Correspondence, 210. 



64 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

he ver}^ happily showed to non-slaveholders here, what their con- 
dition would be in such an event. It would terminate in amalga- 
mation or extermination Shall the African rule here ? No ! 

We will not be governed by the African ; neither will we be by 
the Yankees ! We must secede. Georgia will lead otf, South 
Carolina will go with her, Alabama will soon follow, and Missis- 
sippi will not be long behind her Within eighteen months 

we will have the whole South with us, and more than that ; we 
will extend our borders, we will have New Mexico, Utah, and 
California. Utah already has slaves. We will march into Cali- 
fornia, and we will ask them if they will have slaves, and her 
people will ansAver, Ay, we will have slaves. And what of Mex- 
ico? Why, when we are ready for them, and her people are 
fitted to come among us, we will take her too, or as much of her 
as we want. ' ' ^ 

F. W. Pickens expressed a view similar to Rhett's regarding 
the work of the Nashville Convention. Comparing the condition 
of the South with that of the colonies before the Revolution, he 
said that the Southern states would have to move step by step, 
and he pictured the Nashville Convention as the first step 
towards equality or independence. ^ Hammond agreed with the 
sentiments expressed by Rhett in his Charleston speech, but he 
regretted the fact that they had been uttered. He had worked 
at Nashville to overcome the prejudice against South Carolina 
and to secure a second meeting of the convention. He expected 
the struggle throughout the South against submission to be both 
difificult and long unless the North by increasing aggressions 
should aid the disunionists, and he feared that Rhett's words, es- 



' This speech, not written out in full, is reported in the Mercury, Sept. 
12, 1850. Some corrections Avere made by Rhett in ibid., Sept. 13, 1850. 
The quotation here given, then, represents correctly Rhett's ideas, though 
not his exact words. 

" Speech near Glenn Springs, Aug. 10, in Spartan, Aug. 22, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 65 

pecially his reference to the Nashville Convention as a revolu- 
tionary step, would be used by submissionists against South Car- 
olina and the resistance movement. "Such men spoil all move- 
ments, ' ' he wrote in disgust. ^" 

In the meantime, Congress had paid little attention to the 
so-called ultimatum of the Nashville Convention. The death of 
Taylor and the succession of Fillmore to the presidency, with 
Webster as his Secretary of State, insured the success of Clay's 
plan of adjustment. On July 31, the bill for the territorial or- 
ganization of Utah without the prohibition of slavery passed the 
Senate. Within the course of the next two months five separate 
bills, containing substantially Clay's proposals, were accepted 
by both houses. On September 20, the last of these, providing 
for the suppression of the slave trade in the District of Colum- 
bia, became a laM^ In the House the South Carolina delegation 
supported only the fugitive-slave bill. 

The time had now come to test the sincerity of those who 
had pledged resistance to the Wilmot Proviso, to the admission 
of California with her constitution prohibiting slavery, and to 
the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. 
Moderate men, among them most of the Southern Whigs, who 
had been willing to resist the Wilmot Proviso, accepted the com- 
promise. The radicals declared that the admission of California 
was worse than the proviso, and demanded resistance to the com- 
promise. But in only four states. South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
bama, and Mississippi, was any serious movements in this direc- 
tion begun. 

The passage of the compromise measures served only to in- 
crease the disunion movement in South Carolina and to bring it 
more into the open. Where disunion had been deemed an alter- 
native, it was now demanded as the only course left for the 

"Hammond to Simms, June 27, to H. W. Conner, July 17, 1850, Ham- 
mond MSS. 



66 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

South. Even the Charleston Conner considered the argument 
exhausted and the time for action at hand, and was convinced 
that a dissolution of the Union was inevitable. ^^ The Mercury 
said, "No earthly power can save this Confederacy from disso- 
lution."^^ Its columns were filled with demands for disunion 
and the formation of a Southern confederacy. The compromise 
measures were denounced as giving nothing to the South and 
everything to the North. It was declared that the fugitive slave 
law would not be enforced or would soon be repealed. ^^ 

But the demand for a dissolution of the Union and the for- 
mation of a Southern confederacy was not based so much on the 
grounds of the injustice and unconstitutionality of the recent 
acts of Congress per se, as on the conviction repeatedly asserted 
that the institution of slavery was endangered by a continuance 
of the Southern states within the Union. The editor of the 
Spartan wrote: "The signs of the times disclose the solemn truth 
that we must give up the Union or give up slavery." ^* Another 
editor stated the same opinion in other words when he declared 
that "the question is not Union or disunion; but simply the ulti- 
mate abolition of slavery in the Union or its retention and 
Southern independence out of it. "^•''' A third, in one of the 
great rice-planting sections of the state, argued that "the true 
issue before us, is whether we will give up a Union oppressive 
and hostile to us, or give up slavery which is indispensibly neces- 
sary to our very existence. ' ' ^® Pamphleteers stressed the same 
idea and urged a Southern confederacy as the remedy. One 
argued that the North with the aid of new free states to be 



" Nov. 7, 1850. 
"Oct. 21, 1850. 

'^Mercury, Oct. 23, Nov. 7, 1850; Spartan, Oct. 31, 1850; Winyah Oh 
server, Nov. 20, 1850. 

" Spartan, Nov. 14, 1850. 

" Tri-Weekly South Carolinian, Sept. 28, 1850. 

" Winyah Observer, Dec. 14, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 67 

created out of the territories, would soon abolish slavery in the 
South. The result would be political and social equality for 
black and white, the loss of $15,000,000,000 capital and an equal 
loss in land depreciation, the abandonment of the cultivation of 
Southern staples and consequently poverty, distress, and ruin. 
As an alternative he pictured a prosperous and happy "South- 
ern United States of America." ^^ Another summarized hia 
whole pamphlet of one hundred and tifty-two pages with these 
sentences : ' ' There is Union and Abolition on one hand, and Dis- 
union and Slavery on the other. Which of the two shall we 

choose? Give us SLAVERY or give us death.''' ^^ 

Upon the passage of the compromise measures South Caro- 
lina leaders looked to other Southern states for the beginning of 
resistance. Though urged to do so, Governor Seabrook decided 
not to call a special session of the legislature, preferring to await 
the movement of Georgia and one or two other states before com- 
mitting South Carolina. But he was prepared, when the time 
should come, "to recommend the strongest measure that has 
been conceived. ' ' ^^ On September 20, Seabrook sent letters, in 
identical terms, to the governors of Virginia, Alabama, and 
Mississippi informing them that the governor of Georgia would 
soon call a state convention, and asking whether their respective 
states were prepared to adopt any scheme to second Georgia "in 
her noble effort to preserve unimpaired the Union of '87." He 
assured them that as soon as the governors of two or more states 



"(John Townsend) "The Southern States, Their Present Peril, and 
Their Certain Eemedy " 

" Edward B. Bryan, ' ' The Eightful Remedy. Addressed to the Slave- 
holders of the South. ' ' 

'« Seabrook to Col. J. A. Leiand, Sept. 18, 21, 1850, Seabrook MSS. 
That of Sept. 21, printed in Mercury, Sept. 27, 1850. See I. W. Hayne to 
Hammond, Oct. 6, 1850, "I think we should give them (Ga., Ala., Miss.) 
time to come up to us before we proceed to extremities. ' ' Hammond MSS. 



68 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

should assemble their legislatures or furnish some other evidence 
on the part of their states "of determined resistance, in disre- 
gard of consequences," he would call the South Carolina legis- 
lature with a view to the adoption of measures that, so far as it 
concerned his state, would "effectually arrest the career of an 
interested and despotic majority."-" This letter shows that 
Seabrook had already' received information from Governor 
Towns of Georgia of his intention to call a state convention as 
recommended by legislative resolutions of the preceding Feb- 
ruary. ^^ 

Seabrook 's reason for not calling the South Carolina legisla- 
ture is indicated by the letter Towns wrote him on September 25. 
The situation in Georgia, he wrote, was critical, and though the 
people were prepared to act decisively, their leaders opposed the 
resistance measures that he desired. The resistance party had no 
strength to lose by any premature movement in any of the other 
states, and he feared that should South Carolina take any de- 
cided step it would contribute largely' to the overthroAv of the 
"true Southern party" in Georgia and the election of a submis- 
sion majority to the state convention. He suggested that South 
Carolina make no move until the results of tlie election should 
be known. ^^ 

In Alabama Governor Collier, though urged to do so, did 
not think it wise to convene the legislature in special session. 
Yancey, however, led a movement for the organization of South- 
ern Rights Associations throughout the state, and made the 
right of secession the issue in the campaign of the following 



^"Endorsed, "Confidential letter to the Governors of Alabama, Vir- 
ginia, and Mississippi, Sept. 20, '50." Seabrook MSS. Also printed iu 
J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, II, 36. 

" For these resolutions see Ga. Laivs, 1849-50, 405-410. 

" Gov. Towns to Gov. Seabrook, Sept. 25, 1850, Seabrook MSS. 



The Compromise Rejected 69 

year. ^^ In Virginia, the compromise was accepted without ser- 
ious opposition. But from Mississippi Seabrook received a fav- 
orable reply to his letter. Governor Quitman wrote that upon 
the passage of the bill for the admission of California he had de- 
cided to call the legislature in special session, and had only de- 
layed that call, to give strength to his position, until the passage 
of the bill abolishing the slave trade in the District of Columbia. 
His proclamation called the legislature to meet the eighteenth of 
November. He informed the governor of South Carolina that it 
was his desire that the legislature should provide for a state con- 
vention with full power to annul the federal compact and estab- 
lish new relations with other states. He looked to secession, and 
he reported the people of Mississippi probably ready for resist- 
ance regardless of consequences. -* 

The news of the action taken by the governors of Mississippi 
and Georgia stimulated a demand from Charleston for an imme- 
diate convocation of the South Carolina legislature. This pres- 
sure Governor Seabrook resisted to the extent of getting up a 
meeting in Columbia which recommended to him not to call the 
legislature. He did, however, prepare a proclamation calling the 
legislature for November 18, the day on which the Mississippi 
legislature was to meet, and only about two weeks before the 
time for the regular annual meeting, with the idea of stimulating 
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Virginia to their duty and 
conciliating Georgia. This proclamation he submitted to Gov- 
ernor Towns with a request for information as to whether or not 
it would operate against the resistance party in Georgia. -^ Evi- 



*' Hearon, Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850, 188-189; Dn Bose, 
Life of Yancey, 251-252; G. F. Mellen, "Henry W. Hilliard aud William 
L. Yancey," in Sewanee Eeviexo, XVII, 32-50. 

" Quitman to Seabrook, Sept. 29, 1850, Seabrook MSS. Printed in part 
in Claiborne, Life of Quitman, II, 37. Quitman's proclamation in ibid., 43. 

" Seabrook to Towns, Oct. 8, 1850, Seabrook MSS. 



70 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

dently the reply from Towns was unfavorable, for it was not is- 
sued. The reasons for taking no definite action in South Caro- 
lina, the fear that the cause of resistance would perhaps receive 
a fatal blow should that state attempt to take the lead, Seabrook 
explained at length to the governor of Mississippi, but he took 
pains to reiterate the assurance that South Carolina was pre- 
pared to second Mississippi or any other state ' ' in any and every 
effort to arrest the career of a corrupt and despotic majority. 
She is ready and anxious, ' ' he continued, ' ' for an immediate sep- 
aration from a Union whose aim is a prostration of our political 
edifice. May I hope that Mississippi will begin the patriotic 
work, and allow the Palmetto banner the privilege of a place in 
her ranks ? " ^^ 

It was the desire of the South Carolina leaders, wrote Sea- 
brook, that united action be taken by a "Southern Congress, 
with full authority on the part of the states represented to se- 
cede from the Union forthwith, or to submit to the supreme au- 
thorities of the country propositions for a new bargain between 
the states, by which equality among the members of the confed- 
eracy and the protection of Southern property shall, in future, be 
put beyond the possibility of hazard." The secession of the 
Southern states acting either through a Southern congress or 
individually on the recommendation of such a Congress, pref- 
erably in the former manner and therefore with a "government 
actually in operation," or the presentation of demands for new 
constitutional guarantees for slavery, perhaps Calhoun's sugges- 
tion, was then the end sought by the governor of South Carolina. 
The call for such a congress he hoped could be secured from the 
Nashville Convention at its second session, from the Georgia Con- 
vention, or from the Mississippi legislature. -" Such also, in gen- 

" Seabrook to Quitman, Oct. 23, 1850, Claiborue, Life of Quitman, II, 
37-38. 

»' Ibid. 



The Compromise Rejected 71 

eral, was the hope that Robert W. Barnwell, who had been ap- 
pointed to the seat in the Senate left vacant by the death of El- 
more, had expressed immediately upon the passage of the com- 
promise measures. "I should think it inexpedient for South 
Carolina to move alone in this matter, ' ' he wrote. ' ' If by action 
any state will give assurance of sustaining her, I should be de- 
cidedly for South Carolina seceding, thus forcing a Congress of 
slaveholding states to assemble. But I should think first to take 
counsel together in Nashville. ' ' ^^ 

Although Judge Sharkey accepted the compromise measures 
and refused to issue the call for the reassembling of the Southern 
Convention, delegates from seven states met in Nashville, Nov. 
11, 1850. Most of the moderate men refused to attend and the 
convention was in complete control of the radicals. Cheves for 
the South Carolina delegation submitted a resolution, "That a 
secession, by the joint action of the slaveholding states, is the 
only efficient remedy for the aggravated wrongs which they now 
endure, and the enormous events which threaten them in the 
future, from the usurped and now unrestricted power of the 
Federal Government." In a fiery speech of three hours in 
length, he elaborated the idea of this resolution; he denounced 
and ridiculed ' ' the glorious Union ; " he pleaded for a union of 
the South and the estaWishment of a Southern confederacy. The 
Convention adopted resolutions affirming the right of secession, 
denouncing the compromise measures, and, as Barnwell and Sea- 
brook had desired, recommending a congress or convention of the 
slaveholding states "intrusted with full power and authority to 
deliberate and act with a view and intention of arresting further 
aggression, and if possible, of restoring the Constitutional rights 
of the South ; and if not, to provide for their future safety and 



"R. W. Barnwell to Gov. John A. Quitman, Sept. 19, 1850, Claiborne 
MSS. 



72 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

independence." The convention attracted little attention and 
adjourned sine die November 18, 1850. ^'■' 

In the meantime, while Seabrook and Barnwell were work- 
ing hopefully for the cooperative resistance of at least four or 
five Southern states, the tide of disunion ran strongly in South 
Carolina. Even before the passage of the last of the compromise 
measures the organization of the state into Southern Rights As- 
sociations was begun. Late in August the citizens of Richland 
district met in Columbia, took steps under the direction of W. C. 
Preston, former Nullifier, Whig senator, and then president of 
South Carolina College, towards the formation of a Southern 
Rights Association, and sent out a circular to the citizens of each 
district of the state recommending that they take similar ac- 
tion. ^° During September, October, and November the organ- 
ization of these associations proceeded in all sections of the state. 
The Southern Rights Association of St. Philip's and St. Mich- 
ael's (Charleston) is typical. Its constitution declared the ob- 
ject of the association to be "to organize more effectively the 
people of these Parishes in the support of the interests of the 
South; to promote concert of action among citizens of this and 
other Southern states in vindication of their rights; and to sus- 
tain the State authorities in whatever measures South Carolina 
may adopt for her defense or that of her sister States. ' ' It pro- 
vided for an organziation with a president, vice-president, a com- 
mittee of finance, a committee of correspondence, and a commit- 
tee of safety to consider all communications, call extra meetings 
and make reports to meetings as they saw fit. It declared that 

"D. T. Herndon, "The Nashville Convention of 1850," in Transac- 
tions of Ala. Hist. Soc, V, 227-233; "Speech of the Hon. Langdon Cheves, 
in the Nashville Convention, November 15, 1850;" "Resolutions and Ad- 
dress adopted by the Southern Convention ;" Mercury, Nov. 19, 2:^, 

1850. 

^ Tri-WeeUy South Carolinian, Aug. 27, Sept. 5, 7, 1850; Winydh Oh- 
server, Sept. 25, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 78 

the association should continue in existence and persevere in its 
efforts until the wrongs of the South should be redressed or 
South Carolina resume the powers she had delegated to the 
United States. ^'■ 

The members of the Winyah and All Saints (Georgetown) 
Southern Rights Association pledged themselves not to employ 
any vessel owned or commanded by persons not citizens of a 
slave state. ^^ The planters in other parishes where coasting ves- 
sels were used to carry rice and cotton to market, in St. Helena's, 
St. Bartholomew's, St. Luke's, Prince William's, signed similar 
pledges. 33 The Southern Rights Association of Beaufort urged 
entire non-intercourse with the non-slaveholding states and 
pledged its members to this program, as far as circumstances 
permitted, and to all measures calculated to attain the formation 
of a Southern confederacy, and, failing in that, to "support the 
State authorities in separate resistance to federal aggression. " ^^ 
The Colleton Rifle Corps volunteered its services to the state in 
case of need, and received from Governor Seabrook this reply : 
"The people of the South occupy a perilous position. How they 
may be rescued from it is perhaps a question which the citizen 
soldier will have to answer. ' ' ^^ 

In the multitude of speeches and resolutions and letters 
printed in the newspapers of the state the line of cleavage be- 
tween those who wanted united action by the South and those 
who wanted independent action by South Carolina began again 
to show itself. Rhett continued his fiery speeches, willing ' ' from 
courtesy" to wait upon the action of other Southern states, but 
ready to urge that South Carolina alone and single-handed take 



^'Mercury, Oct. 4, 1850. 

^^ Winyah Oiserver, Nov. 16, 1850. 

^'Mercury, Sept. 28, Oct. 15, 26, 28, 1850. 

^Ibid., Nov. 15, 1850. 

"Ibid., Nov. 9, 16, 1850. 



74 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

up arms if the other states should submit. ^^ In Georgetown 
R. F. W. Alston secured the passage of a resolution instructing 
the members of the legislature from that district to vote for sep- 
arate state action. ^' The Beaufort pledge looked to the same 
remedy. In the up-country, Representative James L. Orr urged 
the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of a Southern 
confederacy. ^* At Pendleton and at Greenville, both in the 
north-western part of the state, C. G. Memminger of Charleston 
drew a picture for the non-slaveholders of that section of the 
desolation and the war between the races that would follow abo- 
lition. He urged a Southern confederacy, and in the event of 
submission by the other Southern states, the secession from the 
Union of South Carolina alone. ^^ 

Yet there were some South Carolinians who from varying 
motives raised their voices in protest against the headlong course 
their state was thus called upon to take. For the first time since 
the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso such prominent Union- 
ists as Poinsett and W. J. Grayson and even Perry publicly 
avowed their devotion to the Union and their belief that its de- 
struction was neither necessary nor desirable. In Greenville, 
General Waddy Thompson attacked the measures advocated by 
Memminger and declared that the South was not so unjustly 
treated by the North as many contended. ^" Perry issued the 
prospectus of a new paper, the Greenville Southern Patriot, the 
policy of which should be to oppose the popular current sweep- 
ing over the state in favor of separate state action and immediate 
disunion, and to advocate the union of the South in a Southern 
congress for the defense of the rights of the South and the pres- 

•« Speech at Black Oak, Nov. 2, Mercury, Nov. 8, 1850. 

" Winyah Observer, Nov. 16, 1850. 

" Mercury, Nov. 14, 1850. 

"Mercury, Oct. 10, Nov. 9, 1850; Pamphlet: "Speech delivered by 

Col. C. G. Memminger in Pendleton." 

*• Mercury, Nov. 9, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 75 

ervation of the integrity of the Union. *^ Both Perry and 
Thompson by their speeches in 1847 in opposition to the Wilmot 
Proviso had helped raise the storm which now threatened to de- 
stroy the Union or to bring ruin upon South Carolina, Poinsett 
and Grayson had a more consistent record behind them. Both 
now publicly expressed their opposition to any attempt at dis- 
union. Both bravely justified the compromise measures, de- 
clared the formation of a Southern Confederacy undesirable as 
well as impracticable, and judged the secession of South Caro- 
lina alone from the Union nothing but the wildest folly. *^ 

Ex-Governor James Hamilton had a somewhat different 
point of view but he reached a conclusion similar to that of 
Poinsett and Grayson. In a rather remarkable letter addressed 
"to the People of South Carolina" he confessed that he had "no 
superstitious veneration for the Union," but he strongly depre- 
cated separate action by the state, and declared that the people 
of no other state considered the compromise measures sufficient 
cause for a dissolution of the Union. Those measures Hamilton 
himself considered unjust but not unconstitutional, and he 
urged that South Carolina accept them as a final settlement. 
Should they not prove such, he said, and should the free-soilers 
and abolitionists elect a president, repeal the fugitive-slave law, 
and abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, then the whole 
South could unite in dissolving the Union. *^ 

Even so sincere a disunionist as James H. Hammond was 
opposed to calling a convention, opposed to passing any hector- 
ing resolutions, opposed to any open breaking ground against 



*^ Courier, Nov. 15, 1850; Spartan, Nov. 21, 1850. 

"Letter from Hon. J. E. Poinsett to "Tellow Citizens," Dee. 4, 1850, 
in Mercury, Dee. 5, 1850 ; W. J. Grayson, ' ' Letter to His Excellency, White- 
marsh B. Seabrook, Governor of the State of South Carolina, on the Disso- 
lution of the Union." 

"' Letter dated Nov. 11, 1850, printed in Mercury, Nov, 28, 1850. 



76 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

the federal government, opposed to any attempt at secession b}' 
South Carolina, though he thought that ultimately the state 
would have to take the lead in seceding. "In a few years," he 
said, ' ' no one can say when or how soon, the voice of the South 
will call us to the lead." As to his opinion of the compromise, 
he wrote thus : " I think the late acts of Congress constitute good 
grounds for secession, and I think that the Legislature might so 
resolve and proffer cooperation with any other seceding State — 
but without bluster. The error of Hamilton and his set is that 
they look to mere facts, not to the motives of men and the tend- 
encies and objects of measures. There was no actual oppression 
in the Stamp Act or Tea Tax. ' ' " 

In October elections for members of the South Carolina leg- 
islature were held. Though some candidates were recjuested to 
state their views on the questions of calling a state convention, of 
cooperating with Georgia or any other state that should take 
redress into its own hands, and, should no state take this stand, 
of submission or independent action by South Carolina, *^ no 
very clear line was drawn in the campaign on the question of the 
action by the state in a contingency not yet realized. In Charles- 
ton, the highest vote received by any candidate was given to 
John E. Carew, senior editor of the Mercury, who defeated his 
opponent for the state senate by a vote of 1961 to 782. *^ 

The newly elected legislature met late in November. Gov- 
ernor Seabrook's message dealt directly or indirectly almost ex- 
clusively with federal relations. In view of the critical condi- 
tion of those relations he desired investigations into the best 
mode of improving the natural gifts of the state, with especial 
attention to manufacturing. The imminent peril of the institu- 

" Hammond to W. H. Gist, Dec. 2 and P. S. dated Dee. 3, 1850, Ham- 
mond MSS. 

*> Mercury, Oct. 11, 1850. 
- Ibid., Oct. 17, 1850. 



The Compromise Rejected 77 

tion of slavery caused him to advocate measures to check emi- 
gration, increase the value of slave property and encourage all 
classes to possess it. He recommended the purchase of field 
pieces, the establishment within the state of factories for the 
production of arms and munitions, and a large increase in the 
fund for military as well as civil contingencies subject to the 
draft of the governor. He proposed that South Carolina receive 
her share of the proceeds from the sale of public lands as pro- 
vided for by Act of Congress in 1841 and hitherto declined for 
constitutional reasons. The governor dwelt at considerable 
length on the differences between North and South, and the evi- 
dence for his conclusion that the South could no longer hope for 
security of life, or liberty, or property within the Union. He 
concluded : ' ' The time, then, has come to resume the exercise of 
the powers of self protection, which in the hour of unsuspecting 
confidence, we surrendered to foreign hands While adher- 
ing faithfully to the remedy of joint State action for redress of 
common grievances, I beseech you to remember, that no conjunc- 
ture of events ought to induce us to abandon the right of decid- 
ing ultimately on our own destiny." " 

By legislative resolution, Friday, December 6, was desig- 
nated as a day of fasting and humiliation, on which the clergy 
of South Carolina should call together their congregations to ask 
divine guidance for the General Assembly in devising measures 
conducive to the best interests and welfare of the state. *® On 
that day the Reverend Whitefoord Smith conducted religious 
services and delivered a sermon hefore the members of the As- 
sembly. The sermon was largely a defense of the institution 
of slavery, and concluded with the advice that it should be left 
in the hands of God whether He should be pleased that the 



" S. C. Senate Journal, 1850, 14-30. 
^Ibid., 32-33. 



78 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Union be continued with the wrongs of the South redressed, or 
that the bonds be severed and new combinations formed. *" 
Other sermons delivered on this day were in content and in spirit 
similar to many of the speeches of the time, and were calculated 
to fan into a fiercer flame the spirit of sectional hatred. '"" 

The South Carolina legislature contained at most only four 
or five men opposed to disunion. Such was the estimate of B. F. 
Perry, the leader of this handful. ^'^ Governor Seabrook re- 
ported that there was only one man in the legislature in favor of 
ultimate submission. ^^ Petigru, who happened to be in Colum- 
bia when the lower house was debating the question of resist- 
ance, wrote thus of the situation : " I am here in the very focus 
of sedition. Disunion is the prevailing idea, indeed it is a pre- 
dominant sentiment. ' ' '^^ 

But on the question of the immediate action that South 
Cacolina should take there was a serious division in the ranks of 
the disunionists. One party, the separate-state-actionists, was 
in favor of the immediate calling of a convention to take South 
Carolina out of the Union in the company of others if possible, 
but alone if necessary. The other party advocated a more cau- 
tious course. While the members of this party never failed to 
declare their desire that South Carolina ultimately secede alone 



■"Pamphlet: "God, the Refuge of His People. A Sermon, delivered 
before the General Assembly of South Carolina, on Friday, December 6, 
18.50, being a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer. By Whitefoord 
Smith, D. D." 

'"See pamphlets: "Views upon the present crisis. A discourse, deliv- 
ered in St. Peter's Church, Charleston, on the 6th of December, 1850 

By Wm. H. Barnwell, rector of said church," and "Our Danger and 
Duty. A discourse delivered Dec. 6, 1850, by the Rev. A. A. Porter, 
Pastor. ' ' 

"J. L. Petigru to his sister, Dec. 19, 1850, in J. B. Allston, "Life and 
Times of James L. Petigru," Chas. Sundaj/ News, Mar. 11, 1900. 

" Seabrook to Quitman, Dec. 17, 1850, Claiborne MSS. 

"Petigru to Daniel Webster, Dec. 6, 1850, Webster MSS. 



The Compromise Rejected 79 

if necessarj^, rather than submit, they worked for the calling of a 
Southern congress as proposed by the second session of the Nash- 
ville Convention and opposed the immediate calling of a state 
convention. Perry explained that both parties were equally de- 
termined on a dissolution of the Union ; that one hoped to 
achieve this by means of a Southern Congress and the formation 
of a Southern confederacy ; that the other, believing no Southern 
state would unite with South Carolina, desired to call a conven- 
tion, secede at once and thus force an issue with the federal gov- 
ernment which would unite the South, or failing in this, leave 
South Carolina an independent commonwealth. '* 

While the South Carolina legislature was in session the Mis- 
sissippi legislature provided for a state convention, the elections 
to take place the succeeding October. Quitman immediately tel- 
egraphed and then wrote Seabrook. His assurance that South 
Carolina could confidently rely on the cooperation of Mississippi, 
and the speeches of prominent men in the legislature had some in- 
fluence, said Seabrook, in "checking the course of the impetuous 
and unreflecting. " ^^ If encouraging news for the more con- 
servative disunionists came from Mississippi, that from Georgia 
tended to confirm the opinion of those who believed that delay 
would not bring cooperation. The Georgia Convention, in ses- 
sion December 10-14, though threatening resistance, even to the 
extent of a disruption of the Union, to certain legislation against 
slavery that might in the future be attempted, acquiesced in the 
recently adopted compromise measures as a permanent settle- 
ment of the sectional controversy. '^ 



"Pamphlet dated Jan. 15, 1851: "Circular of Messrs. Perry, Duncan 
and Brockman, to the People of Greenville District." 

"Quitman to R. B. Rhett, Nov. 30, 1850, Seabrook MSS; Seabrook to 
Quitman, (telegram) Dec. 3, 1850, Dec. 17, 19, 1850, Claiborne MSS. The 
letter, dated Dec. 17 and 19, is printed in part in Claiborne, Life of Quit- 
man, II, 39-40. 

^''Journal of the Georgia Convention, 1850. 



80 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

In the lower house of the South Carolina General Assembly, 
consideration of the action that should be taken by the state 
consumed a large part of the session. Of a large number of bills 
and resolutions on this question, a number were referred to the 
Committee on Federal Relations. The others were considered in 
the Committee of the Whole from December 3 to 16. The de- 
bates, participated in by a large number of members, brought out 
clearly the division between state actionists and cooperation- 
ists. '^ The result was a report by the Committee of the Whole 
recommending the passage of a bill for a state convention. In 
the meantime the Committee on Federal Relations had reported 
a bill providing for the election of delegates to a Southern con- 
gress, and the Senate in one day of discussion had passed by a 
vote of 37 to 6 a bill for a state convention. The House imme- 
diately killed the bill for a Southern congress by postponing con- 
sideration of it until January 1. The next day, December 17, 
the Senate bill for a state convention to meet in December, 1851, 
failed to pass the Plouse b.y a vote of 75 yea and 42 nay, the 
necessary affirmative vote of two-thirds of all members being 
lacking. Thus both propositions were lost. The House bill for a 
convention was then tabled, the vote postponing the Southern 
congress bill reconsidered, the state convention bill added to it as 
an amendment, and the two measures together lost by a vote of 
80 yea to 32 nay, two-thirds not in the affirmative. Next a bill 
for a Southern congress, proposed by Memminger, was taken up 
and amended by adding to it the proposal for a state convention. 
This left the House just where it had been before, so it ad- 
journed in confusion soon after midnight. ^^ 

The minority opposed to a state convention had defeated 



" These debates are given in abstract in Courier, Dee. 5-18, and Tri- 
iceekly South Carolinian, Dee. 13, 16, 18, 20, 1850. 

"S. C. Senate Journal, 1850, 131-132; House Journal, 1850, 131, 167, 
182, 192, 196, 197, 207. 



The Compromise Rejected 81 

that measure both alone and when added to the Southern con- 
gress bill. The majority had refused to pass the Southern con- 
gress bill without the convention bill attached. Only three days 
of the session were left and unless some agreement could be 
reached the legislature would adjourn without taking any step 
towards disunion. A compromise was made. On December 18, a 
bill providing for the call of and election of delegates to a South- 
ern congress and for a state convention passed the House by a 
vote of 109 to 12, and on the last day of the session was accepted 
by the Senate with only three dissenting votes. ^^ 

The "Omnibus Bill," as it was called, authorized the gov- 
ernor, in concert with the proper authorities of other states join- 
ing in the congress, to appoint the time and place of meeting of 
this body. The purpose of the congress should be to devise 
measures ade(iuate to obtain the objects proposed by the Nash- 
ville Convention, and to report the same to the slaveholding 
states. The act provided for eighteen deputies from South Caro- 
lina with full power to represent the state, four to be chosen by 
the legislature and two from each Congressional district by the 
qualified voters, the elections to be held the second Monday and 
the day following in October, 1851. It provided, further, for the 
election of delegates, the second Monday in February, 1851, to a 
convention of the people of South Carolina, for the purpose of 
considering the recommendations of the proposed Southern con- 
gress and to take care that the Commonwealth of South Carolina 
suffer no detriment in view of her relations with the laws and 
government of the United States. It suggested Montgomery, 
Alabama, as the place, and Jan, 2, 1852, as the date for the meet- 
ing of the Southern congress. It left the date for the meeting of 
the state convention to be determined by the governor, should 
the Southern congress be assured before the next session of the 

'»S. C. House Journal, 1850, 216; Sen-ate Journal, 1850, 171. 



82 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

legislature, and if not, then by a majority vote of the legislature 
itself. ^° In honor of the passage of this bill guns were fired in 
Columbia and Charleston. *^^ 

The legislature showed the temper of its majority when it 
elected Rhett to Calhoun's seat in the Senate. For Governor, it 
chose John H. Means of Fairfield District. Means was not a 
prominent South Carolina leader, but he had taken a leading 
part in the resistance movement in his district, and had been 
chairman of the Fairfield committee which in 1848 issued an ad- 
dress to the South advocating the establishment of a Southern 
confederacy. In his inaugural address he strongly favored dis- 
union, but urged that South Carolina await the results of the 
measures suggested by the Nashville Convention, and onh* when 
all efforts to unite the South had failed "throw her banner to 
the breeze and leave the consequences to God." "- 

Several measures preparatory to disunion were adopted by 
the legislature. It chartered the South Carolina Atlantic Steam 
Navigation Company for the purpose of establishing communica- 
tion between the ports of South Carolina and foreign countries. 
To this company it authorized a five year loan by the state of 
$125,000 without interest, on the conditions that the vessels of 
the company be constructed so as to "make them available in an 
emergency for war purposes," and that at least two of them be 
completed within twelve months. ^^ It passed ' ' An Act to pro- 
vide for the defense of the State," reestablishing militia brigade 
encampments, and providing for the organization of a Board of 
Ordnance the duties of which should be to care for the arms, am- 
munition, etc., belonging to the state, direct the purchase of mu- 
nitions of war, and secure from a competent military engineer an 



' S. C. Statutes at Large, XII, 50-53. 
'Mercury, Dee. 20, 21, 1850. 
Ibid., Dec. 18, 1850. 
' S. C. Sessio7i Laws, 1850, 29-33. 



The Compromise Rejected 83 

examination of and report on the defense of the coast of the 
state. ^* In addition to some small increases in the usual appro- 
priations for military purposes, the legislature placed $300,000 at 
the disposal of the Board of Ordnance, and added $50,000 to the 
military contingency fund to be used by the governor only in the 
emergency of actual hostility. ^^ To provide the money for these 
unusual expenses, the legislature directed the governor to secure 
from the federal government South Carolina's share of the pro- 
ceeds from the sale of public lands, ^^ and it proceeded to in- 
crease taxes by about fifty per cent. ^'^ 

" S. C. Statutes at Large, XII, 52-53. 

'^ Ibid., 7; Reports and Resolutions, 1850, 230. 

"/&i<?., 223. 

" S. C. Statutes at Large, XI, 540, XII, 3. 



CHAPTER V 

Secession Advocated 

The weeks following the adjournment of the South Carolina 
legislature in December, 1850, and preceding the election of del- 
egates to the state convention which took place February 10 and 
11, 1851, were weeks of comparative quiet. The small amount of 
discussion that took place served only to indicate somewhat more 
clearly the division of opinion in the ranks of the disunionists. 
No open breach was made, however. The compromise forced by 
the minority in the legislature was accepted by the state-action- 
ists, but they did not give up their insistence upon ultimate se- 
cession. The Barnwell Southern Rights Association expressed 
approval of the action of the legislature but insisted upon seces- 
sion by South Carolina alone should the Southern congress fail 
to meet or fail to act. ^ A meeting of the citizens of Fairfield 
agreed that the state convention should act effectively before its 
final adjournment by cooperation if possible, but independently 
if necessary. This, said the Mercury, was the platform on which 
all resistance men ought to stand. - On the other hand, Bishop 
William Capers addressed his "Fellow Citizens of South Caro- 
lina" in opposition to the measures on foot looking solely to se- 
cession by South Carolina alone. He urged the election to the 
convention of wise and sober minded men. ^ Petigru replied to 
this that Union men should not vote at all, but leave to those who 
thought the work of revolution a good work the settlement among 
themselves of how, when, and where they would begin. * 

^Mercury, Jan. 10, 1851. 

'Ibid., Jan. 31, 1851. 

''Ibid., Feb. 7, 1851. 

* Charleston Evening News, Feb. 8, 1851. 



Secession Advocated 85 

The campaign for seats in the state convention was ahiiost 
wholly devoid of interest. In some districts candidates were 
questioned as to their position on secession, and in most cases 
they pledged themselves to vote for separate state action in the 
event of the failure of the Southern congress. '^ In many dis- 
tricts there was little difference of opinion between the candi- 
dates. In Greenville and in a few other districts, the line was 
clearly drawn between submissionists and disunionists or be- 
tween separate state actionists and cooperationists, the latter 
standing for disunion but opposing state secession. In Charles- 
ton no line was drawn and popular confidence was more the de- 
termining factor than definite advocacy of any specific line of 
action for the convention. Several tickets were put forward con- 
taining considerable duplication of names, but little interest in 
the election was shown. The ' ' ultra secessionists ' ' were reported 
to be in a very small minority. ° In most sections of the state the 
very small vote cast indicated either a general lack of interest or 
the absence of any contest. In Charleston only 873 votes were 
cast where in the preceding- October, in a not especially hotly 
contested election for state legislators, there had been a total of 
2743. ' From other sections of the state reports indicated a very 
light vote, a situation explained by ardent secessionists on the 
ground that the people were all of the same way of thinking and 
all candidates of the right stamp. « Perry, however, declaring 
that not one-third of the people had voted, saw in this extraordi- 
nary apathy of the voters the commencement of reaction. ^ Ham- 
mond thought that the convention had fallen dead, and rejoiced 



^Mercury, Feb. 6; Winyah Observer, Jan. 29, Feb. 1, 4; Tri-Weekly 
South Carolinian, Jan. 20, 1851. 

•John Eussel to Hammond, Feb. 10, 1851, Hammond MSS. 
'Mercury, Oct. 17, 1850, Feb. 12, 1851. 
^Tri-WeeUy South Carolinian, Feb. 14, 1851. 
'Southern Patriot (Greenville), Feb. 28, 1851. 



86 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

at the 'blow the slight vote would give to Khett's game to commit 
the state as early and as deeply as possible before a cooling down 
should take place. " Francis Lieber, then professor in South 
Carolina College, wrote thus of the situation : 

"Yesterday the election for the convention closed and, so 
far as heard from, the people have shown the greatest apathy. 
In Richland district — the district I live in — we polled 1400 votes 
at a late election for the Legislature, at this election where the 
question is secession or not, only about 800 ! My friend Mr. Pet- 
igru, sees in it a symptom of returning sense. I wish I could do 
tlie same. To me this apathy has been fearful. To be passive 
when boys fire crackers near a powder magazine shows an amaz- 
ing callousness, which in politics means that the game may be 
taken in hand by a few trading politicians and a number of 
reckless editors. But one thing I must state in the spirit of 
truth, that I find now tens and even hundreds who frankly say 
that separate state secession would be folly for one a few months 
ago. Almost everyone is for Southern secession, but we must be 
thankful for small favors. ' ' " 

Whatever the cause for the small vote, the result was to give 
the control of the convention into the hands of those favorable to 
ultimate separate secession by South Carolina. The South Caro- 
linian declared the secession of South Carolina a fixed fact, the 
time, only, left for future consideration, and claimed that nine- 
tenths of the delegates were convinced that redress for the past 
and security for the future were "only to he found in seces- 
sion." ^- Of the one hundred and sixty-nine delegates the Mer- 
cury claimed that one hundred and twenty-seven were for the 
secession of South Carolina alone from the Union, and that of the 
minority opposed to speedy action, less than ten were submis- 

"Hammona to Simms, Feb. 14, 1851, Hammond MSS. 

" Francis Lieber to Daniel Webster, Feb. 13, 1851, Webster MSS. 

"Feb. 22, 1851. 



Secession Advocated 87 

sionists. " The greatest claim made by the other side was that 
seventy-eight delegates were opposed to secession. " One dele- 
gate wrote that in opposition to state secession he stood almost 
alone among those elected to the convention. ^•' 

Among the delegates chosen were many of South Carolina's 
leading men. The Charleston delegation was largely a eonserva- 
time one. It was headed by Langdon Cheves, who had received 
the largest vote, and contained such men as Robert W. Barn- 
well, Senator A. P. Butler, ex-Senator D. E. Huger, Judge Ed- 
ward Frost, Judge Mitchell King, Chancellor B. F. Dunkin, 
C. G. Memminger, and I. W. Hayne. From other districts were 
chosen Governor Means, F. W. Pickens, Maxcy Gregg, and for- 
mer governors J. P. Richardson and W. B. Seabrook. In Green- 
ville B. F. Perry headed the only Union delegation elected to the 
convention. 

In the other Southern states little encouragement could be 
found for those who hoped for cooperative disunion or cooper- 
ative action of any kind. The call for a Southern congress met 
with little favor. In Alabama the legislature adopted resolu- 
tions accepting the compromise measures as a final settlement of 
the slavery question. i« The Virginia legislature took the same 
position, and appealed to South Carolnia to desist from any med- 
itated secession. ^' To Mississippi, the people of South Carolina 
therefore looked with anxiety. The situation was thus explained 
to Quitman : 

"In a word, then, nearly every man in South Carolina be- 
lieves that the equal political condition of the slave holding states 
is incompatible with the existence of the present Confederation 



"Feb. 19, 1851. 

^* Southern Patriot, May 9, 1851. 

"A. P. Aldrieh to Hammond, May 20, 1851, Hammond MSS. 

"Laws of Alabama, 1850-1851, 535. 

"Laws of Virginia, 1850-1851, 201. 



88 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

that the present Union and the institution of slavery cannot 

coexist and that so fixed, determined and progressive is the pol- 
icy, destructive to slavery, which controls the General Govern- 
ment, it is safer and wiser to dissolve all connection with that 

Government at once Will South Carolina be sustained by 

the sympathies of the people or the cooperation of any of the 
other slave-holding states? If there is a prospect or chance of 
this, many of her public men will counsel delay and efforts to at- 
tain aid so desirable for success. If, however, there be no such 
hope well founded, then we will go as one man for secession and 
leave the consequences to the inevitable workings of truth and 
necessity on those who ought to be with us. ' ' ^^ 

In reply, Quitman wrote that it could not be expected that 
Mississippi would secede unless joined by her neighboring states 
and that there was little prospect of even the cotton states tak- 
ing any joint action. He advised his South Carolina friends as 
follows: "If, therefore, the people of South Carolina have made 
up their minds to withdraw from the Union at all events, 
whether joined by other states or not, my advice would be to do 
so without waiting for the action of any other state, as I believe 
there would be more probability of favorable action on the part 
of other Southern States after her secession than before. So long 
as the several aggrieved states wait for one another, their action 
will be overcautious and timid. Great political movements, to be 
successful must be bold, and must present practical and simple 
issues. There is, therefore, in my opinion, greater probability of 
the dissatisfied states uniting with a seceding state than of their 
union for the purpose of secession. The secession of a Southern 
state would startle the whole South, and force the other states to 
meet the issue plainly ; it would present practical issues, and ex- 
hibit everywhere a widerspread discontent than politicians have 

"John S. Preston to John A. Quitman, Mar. 4, 1851, Claiborne MSS. 



Secession Advocated 89 

imagined. In less than two years, all the states south of you 
would unite their destiny to yours. Should the federal govern- 
ment attempt to employ force, an active and cordial union of the 
whole South would be instantly effected, and a complete South- 
ern Confederacy organized." " 

Such was the theory on which the secessionists of South 
Carolina proposed to act. The Mercury urged that a Southern 
confederacy could only be formed after decisive action by some, 
state and that South Carolina was the only state which could act 
with the general approval of its people. ^° One secessionist, a 
member of the South Carolina convention, thought that the con- 
veniton should pass an ordinance of secession and the legislature 
put this ordinance into effect by annulling the authority of the 
United States courts in South Carolina, by declaring the ports of 
the state free to the commerce of all nations, and by instructing 
the governor to demand the withdrawal of all United States of- 
ficials and the surrender of all forts within the state. This he 
thought would be followed by the removal of the customs houses 
to ships outside the ports and the continued execution of the rev- 
enue laws. In Congress he expected a struggle over the question 
of coercion which, in the event of the passage of a force bill, 
would insure the aid of at least a portion of the slave states in 
opposition to its enforcement. In the last resort, he said. South 
Carolina had all the chances of war; the blockade could do no 
more than effect the temporary destruction of the commerce of 
Charleston, and he was willing to see that city laid in ashes if 
necessary for a successful defense of the state. -^ Needless to 
say, the writer of this letter was not a Charlestonian. 



" Quitman to Preston, Mar. 29, 1851, Claiborne, Life of Quitman, II, 
123-127. 

'"' Feb. 27, 1851. 

" James Jones to Hammond, Apr. 5, 1851, Hammond MSS. 



90 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Rhett rejoiced that a Southern congress would not meet, for 
he thought that such a 'body would only counsel submission. He 
declared that the only choice left for South Carolina was submis- 
sion or secession, and secession he claimed to be her settled pol- 
icy. He spoke before the Charleston Southern Rights Associa- 
tion on April 7, 1851, and pictured for the citizens of that city 
the benefits to their commercial and mercantile interests that 
would result from secession and the inauguration of a free trade 
policy by South Carolina, The possibility of coercion by the 
federal government he declared to be absurd, for that govern- 
ment knew that any such attempt would bring the whole South 
to the rescue. He assured his audience that either South Caro- 
lina would be begged to return to the Union with the guarantee 
of all her rights or she would be left peacefully alone, soon to be 
joined by the other Southern states attracted by her prosperity 
and free government. ^" 

Rhett 's arguments, however, were not convincing, as the let- 
ters to the newspapers from Charleston merchants counting the 
cost of secession clearly demonstrated. -^ Other outspoken op- 
position to separate secession was soon made. In Edgefield Sen- 
ator Butler addressed the Southern Rights Association in oppo- 
sition to separate secession which he thought would be peaceful 
and hence fail to bring in other Southern states. -* Represen- 
tative Orr likewise opposed secession and urged that time would 
bring cooperation. '^ Even Representative Wallace, who argued 
at great length that a Southern confederacj^ was both necessary, 
natural and inevitable because of the differences between North 
and South resulting from slavery, favored delay in secession un- 
til the state could prepare herself to defend and preserve her in- 



" Mercury, Apr. 29, 1851. 

^''See letter from '-'Utter Ruin" in Courier, May 5, 18.51. 
" Mercury, Apr. 12 ; South Carolinian, Apr. 12, 1851. 
"Greenville Mountaineer quoted in Mercury, Apr. 9, 1851. 



Secession Advocated 91 

dependence. "The price of the Union," he wrote, "is the eman- 
cipation of the slave and a surrender of the fairest portion of our 
country to the emancipated African. ' ' -" 

None of these opponents of separate secession, however, pro- 
fessed any desire to see the Union preserved. Rather they feared 
that separate secession would endanger, if not definitely pre- 
vent, the formation of a Southern confederacy. But in Green- 
ville, Perry began to publish the Southern Patriot in opposition 
to both secession and disunion. Although the prospectus had 
been issued the preceding fall, the first issue did not appear un- 
til February 28, 1851. Ex-Governor Seabrook said that Perry 
distributed gratuitously several thousand copies of this paper 
weekly and charged that Waddy Thompson had secured .$30,000 
from the national administraton for its support. ^' Whatever 
the truth of this statement, the Southern Patriot did receive 
federal patronage to the extent of a contract to publish in its 
columns the current Acts of Congress. A copy of the paper was 
sent to Daniel Webster and the administration in other ways 
kept informed of the situation in South Carolina. Perry was an 
able and astute supporter of the cause of the Union. He admit- 
ted that the South had been insulted and outraged, but he de- 
clared that secession would he no remedy. He pointed out that 
secession would separate South Carolina from the other South- 
ern states who had all acquiesced in the compromise measures. 
He dwelt at length on the disasters that would overtake the state 
in the event of secession, either peaceful or by force of arms. He 
declared that the members of the state convention had been 
elected with indecent haste, at an unusual period, and before the 
people had been aroused to a sense of their danger. He urged 
that the convention accept the compromise measures and en- 

-Letter from D. Wallace to the editor of the Laurensville Herald 
Apr. 20, 1851, printed in Spartan, May l.j, 1851. 

" Seabrook to Quitman, July 15, 1851, Seabrook MSS. 



92 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

deavor to secure a Southern congress to adopt a platform on 
which all Southern states could stand in opposition to abolition. 
He believed that thus the compromise would be sustained and 
the rights of the South guaranteed and preserved within the 
Union. '^ 

"*" Perry had established his paper when, as Judge Evans said, 
South Carolina seemed to be going for secession by default. ^^ 
Despite the work of Perr}', whom the advocates of cooperative 
disunion repudiated, and the occasional speeches of some lead- 
ing men who were becoming alarmed at the course the state was 
taking, the secessionists for the time being met with no serious 
opposition. For three months following the election of delegates 
to the state convention, there was little agitation of the ques- 
tion. A number of Southern Rights Associations met during 
this period, however, and declared for separate secession. The 
great majority of the newspapers took the same position. 

In January the Southern Rights Association of Charleston 
had invited the other association in South Carolina to send dele- 
gates to a general convention to be held in Charleston the first 
Monday in May, the purpose of which should be to discuss the 
proper mode and measure of redress for the wrongs of the state 
and to effect a more perfect organization and union of the asso- 
ciations. ^° In the middle and upper districts there was some 
fear expressed that Charleston, apprehensive of injury to its 
commerce and the possibility of an invasion by federal troops, 
was growing lukewarm towards separate state action, and that it 
was intended to use the Convention of Southern Rights Associa- 
tions to prepare South Carolina to back out honorably and agree 
to wait an unlimited time for cooperation. "^ If such had been 

'^Southern Patriot, Mar. 21, Apr. 4, May 23, 1851. 
^^ B. F. Perry, Reminiscences of Public Men. 
'^ Mercury, Feb. 14, 1851. 

"^ South Carolinian, Apr. 10; Laurensville Ilerald quoted in ibid., Apr. 
1; Mercury, May 5, 1851. 



Secession Advocated 93 

the intention, quite the opposite was the result. Most of the 
Southern Rights Associations throughout the state were in the 
control of the radicals and sent down delegates in such numbers 
and of such opinions that the conservatives were completely and 
decisively defeated. 

The Convention of the Southern Rights Associations met in 
Charleston for a four day session beginning May 5, 1851. Dele- 
gates numbering about four hundred and thirty were present 
from every district in the state except Horry. The first day was 
devoted to organization. Ex-Governor J. P. Richardson, who 
was chosen president of the convention, reviewed elaborately but 
calmlj^ the wrongs of the South, and assured the convention that 
it was its duty to determine upon the remedj^ and how, where, 
and v.'hen it should be applied. Judge Cheves was not present 
at the convention but he sent a letter, which was read before that 
body, in which he urged that South Carolina should not secede 
alone and thus separate herself from the other Southern states, 
but should wait upon them and be prepared to join them when 
they should be ready for resistance. He warned the convention 
against attempting to decide for the state the question of sepa- 
rate secession, a step which he declared would unfortunately di- 
vide the state into rival and hostile parties. 

A committee of twenty-one was appointed to prepare and 
report business to be acted on by the convention. For this com- 
mittee, on the following day, Maxcy Gregg submitted an Ad- 
dress to the Southern Rights Associations of other Southern 
States and a series of four resolutions. The address was written 
in a spirit which took for granted that the state convention would 
without hesitation provide for the -secession of South Carolina 
from the Union, and was in the nature of a justification of sepa- 
rate action by the state. Almost apologetically it explained that 
South Carolina had been anxious to avoid any appearance of ar- 
rogance or dictation, had desired to act in concert and do noth- 



/'■ 



94 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

ing separately or precipitate!}', and was still prepared to give a 
trial to any effectual plan which might be proposed by the 
Southern states for obtaining redress and security without a dis- 
solution of the Union if such were possible. But failing to se- 
cure this cooperative action, the address declared that South 
Carolina could not submit, and must exercise the right of seces- 
sion, a right that each state must decide for itself when to ex- 
ercise, though it would remain with the other states to determine 
whether they would permit efforts to prevent the peaceful exer- 
cise of this right by South Carolina. The address concluded : 
''The gloomy prospect of inevitable ruin, to follow submission, 
appears to us more formidable than any dangers to be encount- 
ered in contending alone, against whatever odds for our rights. 
We have come to the deliberate conclusion that if it be our fate 
to be left alone in the struggle, alone we must vindicate our lib- 
erty by secession." 

The resolutions submitted with the address from the com- 
mittee of twenty-one formed the platform of the secessionists 
who were in control of the state convention and of the conven- 
tion of Southern Rights Associations, and against whom no open 
and organized opposition of any serious consequence had yet de- 
veloped. For these reasons the resolutions may be quoted in 
full. They read as follows: 

"1. Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting, the 
State of South Carolina cannot submit to the wrongs and aggres- 
sions M-hich have been perpetrated by the Federal Government 
and the Northern states, without dishonor and ruin ; and that it 
is necessary to relieve herself therefrom, whether with or with- 
out the cooperation of other Southern states. 

"2. Resolved, That concert of action with one or more of 
our sister States of the South, whether through the proposed 
Southern Congress, or in any other manner, is an object worth 
many sacrifices, but not the sacrifice involved in submission. 



Secession Advocated 95 

"3. Resolved, That we hold the right of secession to be es- 
sential to the sovereignty-freedom of the States of this Con- 
federacy; and that the denial of that right would furnish to an 
injured State the strongest additional cause for its exercise 

''4. Resolved, That this meeting looks with confidence and 
hope to the Convention of the people, to exert the sovereign 
power of the State in defense of its rights, at the earliest prac- 
ticable period and in the most eifectual manner; and to the Leg 
islature to adopt the most speedy and effectual measures 
towards the same end. ' ' 

A minority report, signed by only three members of the 
committee, dissented from the majority report on the gro.inds 
that It departed from the proper objects of the convention and 
raised issues uncalled for by the occasion; and it offered a sub- 
stitute resolution leaving to the state convention to determine the 
mode and measure of redress as well as the time of its applica- 
tion, and pledging support to the decision of this convention 
■whether that should be for secession with or without the coop- 
eration of the other Southern states. 

Discussion of the two reports occupied the last two days of 
the meeting. In support of the majority report the chief speak- 
ers were Maxcy Gregg, Congressman W. F. Colcock and ex-Gov- 
ernor Seabrook. In opposition were Senator Butler, Robert W 
Barnwell, and Congressman James L. Orr. Colcock declared 
that cooperation could never be obtained because aggression 
would be so gradual that no clear issue on which the whole South 
could unite would be presented by any uncautious and overt act 
against slavery until consolidation and abolition had gone so far 
that escape for the South would be impossible. South Carolina 
by seceding should present the issue. If coercion followed, then 
the South would rally to her aid; if not, then she would continue 
an independent nation. Butler did not believe that secession 
would result in armed conflict for that would bring the South 



96 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

to the aid of the state. He feared, instead, that economic and 
commercial coercion would ruin the state and fail to arouse the 
South. He was confident that if South Carolina should refrain 
from secession, the other Southern states must eventually coop- 
erate with her. Barnwell explained to the convention that there 
was danger of confusing the end desired by South Carolina and 
the means that might he employed to secure that end. The pro- 
tection of slavery he asserted to be the end. Secession to secure 
the establishment of a new government was but the means to this 
end, and when secession could lead to no new government or only 
to one exposing slavery to greater dangers, secession should no 
longer be adhered to as excellent in itself. The question, he said, 
was not resistance or submission, but the formation of a new 
government that would protect slavery. For the formation of 
this government, Barnwell urged that South Carolina wait until 
the other states with interests equal to hers were ready to join 
her in accomplishing its establishment. 

The speech made by Orr throws some light on the motives 
which influenced the secessionists, to whom, however, the speaker 
was opposed. Orr admitted that in the convention and perhaps 
throughout the state the majority was overwhelming in favor of 
separate state action, but he asserted that few if any would sup- 
port secession if they thought that South Carolina as a result 
would constitute a republic independent of and isolated from the 
Southern states. Yet such would be the practical result, he de- 
clared, if no coercion were attempted by the federal government. 
As a foreign state, the commerce of South Carolina would be al- 
most completely destroyed, her products would have to pay heavy 
duties when exported to the United States, and the products 
bought from the North would be increased in price by the amount 
of South Carolina's tax on imports. The Wilmot Proviso, he 
said, had been resisted by South Carolina because it would have 
restricted slavery and made it valueless in proportion to the in- 



Secession Advocated 97 

crease in its numbers ; yet the secession of South Carolina would 
put the same principle into operation by effectually preventing 
the exportation of slaves to any of the other states. The argu- 
ment so far was based on the assumption that South Carolina 
would be allowed peacefully to secede. Assuming on the other 
hand that force would be used against the state by the federal 
government, Orr declared that coercion would take the form of a 
blockade, a form that would excite no sympathy in the other 
Southern states on which the secessionists relied. Nor was the 
commerce of South Carolina sufficiently great to induce Great 
Britain or any other power to interfere. Patience, Orr promised, 
would gain the cooperation of other Southern states, either in 
forcing guarantees within the Union or in forming a Southern 
confederacy. But five years previous, he pointed out, disunion 
would not have been tolerated even in South Carolina, and now 
there was not a Union man in the assem'bly which he addressed. 
In the other cotton states the value of the Union was openly cal- 
culated and disunion advocated. Though temporarily stopped, 
there were signs of a continuation of Northern aggression, and 
the time would soon arrive when South Carolina could rally un- 
der a Southern banner at the bidding of her Southern allies. 

Despite the opposition of Butler and Barnwell and Orr, the 
delegates from the Southern Rights Associations were not moved 
from their determination to dictate the policy of separate seces- 
sion for the State of South Carolina. The minority report was 
tabled, the address was adopted with but one dissenting voice, 
and the resolutions as reported by the committee of twenty-one 
accepted by an almost unanimous vote. The meeting then 
formed itself into the Southern Rights Association of the State 
of South Carolina. It provided for a permanent organization 
with semi-annual meetings and regularly chosen delegates num- 
bering double the number of senators and representatives from 
each district. It directed the president to appoint a central 



98 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

committee of nine whose duty should be to promote the common 
cause by correspondence, by publishing and circulating docu- 
ments, and by all other proper means. ^' 

To the minds of some secessionists the Charleston meeting 
of delegates had settled the whole question definitely and seces- 
sion was inevitable. ^^ Maxcy Gregg for a time thought that the 
movement would go quietlj^ on gathering strength until the whole 
state should be secured, ^* yet he realized the danger of a pos- 
sible organized opposition of sufficient vigor to cause serious 
embarassment to the secessionists. To John A. Quitman he 
wrote: "I beg of you to withhold any expression of opinion 
against the movement until you have had time for a deliberate 
survey of aifairs. An expression of opinion by you (even if 
made in reply to some private and confidential communication 
from a wavering leader) against the policy which has been 
adopted by an overwhelming majority of the meeting just ad- 
journed, might cause some fatal defection. For God's sake, let 
the resistance leaders of Mississippi express no hasty opinion 
against us."^" Governor Means wrote, "There is now not the 
slightest doubt but that the next Legislature will call the con- 
vention together at a period during the ensuing year, and when 
that convention meets the state will secede." What the seces- 
sionists expected from the other Southern states the governor in- 
dicated when he assured Quitman that South Carolina would 
lead off, even if she had to stand alone, but trusting that her sis- 



^^ Pamphlet: "Proceedings of the Meeting of Delegates from the 

Southern Rights Associations of South Carolina " See also Courier, 

May 6-9, 1851. Pamphlet: "Speech of the Hon. W. F. Colcock " 

Barnwell's speech in Courier, May 27, 1851. Orr's speech in Charleston 
Evening News, June 2, 1851. 

''Hammond to Simms, May 24, 1851, Hammond MSS. 

"A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, May 16, 1851, ihid. 

"^ Maxcy Gregg to Quitman, May 9, 1851, Claiborne, Life of Quitman, 
II, 132-133. 



Secession Advocated ' 99 

ter states would unite with her in the attempt to save Southern 
institutions from ruin and the South from degradation. '■"'' Gregg 
made this still clearer when he wrote regarding the course the re- 
sistance party in Mississippi should take: "Let them contend 
manfully for secession, and, even if beaten in the elections, they 
will form a minority so powerful in moral influence that, when 
South Carolina secedes, the first drop of blood that is shed will 
cause an irresistible popular impulse in their favor, and the 
submissionists will be crushed. Let the example be set in Missis- 
sippi, and it will be followed in Alabama and Georgia. Impart- 
ing and receiving courage from each other's efforts, the Southern 
Rights men will be ready to carry everything before them in all 
the three states the moment the first blow is struck in South 
Carolina."" 

The secessionists were more justified in their fear that ser- 
ious opposition might develop against their schemes than in their 
confidence that the Southern Rights Association Convention cor- 
rectly expressed the sentiments of the state and that secession by 
South Carolina was an event already definitely and finally de- 
termined. In the light of later developments the action of the 
Charleston convention, its virtual dictation of secession as the 
action that the state convention should take, was a grave blun- 
der. The radicals in control of that meeting were able easily to 
carry out their plans in spite of the opposition that developed 
from the Charleston delegation and from Barnwell, Butler, and 
Orr, but their extreme measures hastened the reaction against 
their headlong course and forced the organization of a party of 
opposition. Conservative men, numbering among them most of 
the ablest and best known leaders of the state, who were sincere 
disunionists and advocates of a Southern confederacy, were 

'"Means to Quitman, May 12, 1851, ihid., 133-134. 

" Maxcy Gregg to Quitman, May 15, 1851, ibid., 134-135. 



100 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

aroused b}^ the action of the Charleston convention to a realiza- 
tion of the dangerous extent to which the secessionists were in 
control of affairs and what extreme measures they were pre- 
pared to adopt. They believed that secession by South Carolina 
would result only in humiliation and disaster for the state and 
defeat for the cause of Southern Rights and a Southern confed- 
eracy. Justly or unjustly, some of them at least, believed that 
Rhett was playing a game, expecting the majority for secession 
to be too small to make secession practicable, yet large enough to 
insure the control of the state by himself and his faction. ^^ 

Both Petigru and Poinsett reported that the Convention of 
Southern Rights Associations was followed b}- a considerable 
reaction in Charleston. ■''''' During the session of that convention 
those who opposed the course that it was to take held several 
caucus meetings to consider what should be done "to arrest the 
headlong movements of the Secessionists. ' ' They decided to pro- 
ceed along three lines of action: first, to buy the Mercury, or, if 
that could not be done, to establish a new paper in Charleston to 
advocate Southern cooperation and resistance to the North; sec- 
ond, to publish and distribute the speeches of Butler, Barnwell 
and Orr and letters from prominent resistance men in other 
states opposing separate secession by South Carolina ; and third, 
to secure the control of the Southern Rights Associations by the 
resistance men as contradistinguished from the secessionists and 

'"On this point see A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, May 16; Hammoml 
to Simms, May 24; Simms to Hammond, June 9, 1851, Hammond MSS. 
It shonld be remembered that Rhett had defeated Hammond for the 8enate 
in Dec. 1850. Poinsett wrote thus of both disunion pai-ties: "Depend upon 
it the interests of the slave holder and the slave, the bond and the free 
throughout these United States will best be promoted by calming as early 
and as far as possible the dangerous agitation which originated and has 
been kept up by political Demagogues for their own sordid purposes. ' ' 
Poinsett to Edward Cole, Mar. 28, 1851, Poinsett MSS. 

^Petigru to his sister, May 14, 1851, Allston, "Life of Petigru" in 
Chas. Sunday Neics, Mar. 11, 1900; letter from Poinsett in Southern Fa- 
triot, June 6, 1851. 



Secession Advocated 101 

the Union men, and to shape the policy of these associations so as 
to keep up the spirit of the people without running into revolu- 
tion. ^° This was action which the secessionists feared despite 
their assurance tliat the question of secession had been settled. 
Seabrook expressed it when he urged Senator Butler to use his 
influence to assure both North and South that South Carolina 
was in earnest and that a dissolution of the Union was inevitable 
unless her grievances were redressed ; and concluded, ' ' An oppo- 
sition party headed by you, Orr and Barnwell, is what man}- men 
desire, but which I and my friends dread. ' ' '^^ 

The complete breach between the two wings of the disunion- 
ists, though unescapable, developed only slowly for some weeks. 
Representative A. Burt, upon a request for his opinion, replied 
that the leading object of secession was to preserve the institu- 
tion of slavery, and that this object could not be obtained by the 
secession of South Carolina alone but only by the secession of the 
slaveholding states and the formation of a Southern confederacy. 
He expected that the federal authorities would coerce the state 
in the event of secession and no aid could be expected from the 
other Southern states. ^- In Charleston, the Evening News, with 
new editors in charge, came out in advocacy of disunion but in 
opposition to separate secession by South Carolina. *^ The op- 
ponents of secession secured another paper in Charleston when 
the Sun was purchased and merged with the Southern Standard. 
On July 1, 1851, the first issue of this paper appeared in advo- 
cacy of a Southern confederacy and in opposition to separate 
secession. ■** But the great majority of the newspapers of the 
state remained ardent supporters of the policy of separate se- 
cession. 

*°A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, May 16, 18.51, Hammond MSS. 
" Seabrook to A. P. Butler, May 12, 1851, Seabrook MSS. 
"Letter publislied in Mercury, May 24; Spartan, June 5, 1851. 
"^Evening Neics, May 27, 28, 1851. 
"Prospectus in Evening News, June 7, 1851. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Campaign and Election op 1851 

Though the Convention of Southern Rights Associations 
split the disunionists of South Carolina into two factions, though 
it aroused many of the leaders of the state to oppose the course 
determined upon by that convention and led to the establishment 
or purchase of some newspapers to give expression to that opposi- 
tion, popular agitation which would reopen the question of se- 
cession for decision by the fully aroused people was somewhat 
slow in developing. In the up-country Perry called for popular 
meetings to protest against secession, to instruct their delegates 
to the convention so to vote, and to demand that the action of the 
convention be submitted to the people for ratification or rejec- 
tion. ^ A meeting in the town of Hamburg, "a nest of North- 
ern Whiggery, " Maxcy Gregg called it, on May 31 was the first 
of these. While urging most strongly the necessity of the co- 
operation of the Southern states to secure the perpetuation of 
slavery, the resolutions of this meeting opposed the separate se- 
cession of South Carolina as insufficient and utterly inadequate 
as a remedy for past wrongs or as a security against more threat- 
ening dangers in the future. They also called on the people of 
South Carolina holding similar views to hold meetings in re- 
sponse to the Hamburg resolutions. ^ Though a Greenville 
meeting on June 2 also opposed secession but made no mention of 
cooperative disunion, ^ for a month longer the opposition to se- 
cession languished. 



> Southern Patriot, May 23, 1851. 
"Courier, June 5, 1851. 
'^Evening News, June 12, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 108 

Yet the movement begun by Barnwell, Butler and Orr and 
by these meetings had its effect upon the people and upon the 
secessionists. The leaders of the latter were chiefly young men 
comparatively unknown to the people. The secessionists began 
to doubt whether the Charleston convention had correctly rep- 
resented the will of the people of the state and to fear that they 
would not have a two-thirds' majority in the state convention, 
without which they thought it would be dangerous to secede. 
Regarding the situation in Mississippi and the probable atti- 
tude that the Southern Rights party in that and other states 
would take towards the secession of South Carolina, they were 
more than ever solicitous. ^ To them Quitman sent assurances of 
the strength of his party in Mississippi and reported that 
though his state could not secede alone, popular feeling warmly 
responded to the sentiments he had publicly expressed that 
should South Carolina secede and the federal government at- 
tempt to coerce her, it would be the duty of Mississippi, regard- 
less of consequences, to throw herself into the contest and aid 
her sister state. He urged that there was no hope of effective 
action by the united Southern states and that the destiny of the 
slaveholding states depended upon the bold and prompt action 
of South Carolina. ^ 

Even Rhett, who more than any other secessionist attempt- 
ed to explain the prosperity that South Carolina would enjoy 
as an independent nation, expected that secession by South Car- 
olina would force other Southern states to disunion and coop- 
eration in opposition to coercion. On June 28, at a celebration 
of the battle of Fort Moultrie, he offered this toast : ' ' Co-opera- 
tion—our fathers obtained it by seizing the stamps, and by fir- 
ing the guns of Fort Moultrie." Above the assemblage floated 

*Seabrook to Quitman, June 9, July 15, 1851, Claiborne MSS. 
Printed in part in Claiborne, Life of Quitman, IT, 139-143. 
° Quitman to Seabrook, June 28, 1851, Seabrook MSS. 



104 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

only the South Carolina flag. The speeches and toasts were 
violent in the extreme. The future of the Union was thus toast- 
ed: "God help us, and it shall have none." Gen. John A. Quit- 
man was cheered as the first president of the Southern Repub- 
lic. « 

Rhett's toast was quite correctly interpreted by Unionists 
to mean that South Carolina would secede and force the South 
to follow her. ^ Thus the campaign in Georgia, Alabama and 
Mississippi on the right of secession had a very practical bearing 
on the South Carolina movement. The strength of the position 
taken by the state-actionists, that secession by South Carolina 
would unite the South and bring cooperation, ^ is shown by the 
position of Howell Cobb, Union candidate for governor of 
Georgia. Cobb denied the constitutional right of secession, but 
he replied to (juestions as to what course he would take as gov- 
ernor should a requisition be made on him by the president for 
militia to coerce a seceding state: "This question may become a 

practical one I should endeavor to be the Executive of the 

will of the people of Georgia I should recommend. . 

.... a convention of the people, and it would be for that conven- 
tion to determine whether Georgia would go out of the 

Union and ally herself and peril her destinies with the seceding 
state, or whether she would remain in the Union and abide the 
fortunes of her other sisters But if a collision of arms be- 
tween the states comprising our glorious confederacy should ever 
come the Union would fall beneath the weight of revolu- 
tion and blood, and fall, I fear, to rise no more." ^ 



'Mercury, July 2, 1851. 

'John B. Lamar to Howell Cobb, July .S, 1851, Toombs, Stephens and 
Cobb Correspondence, 242. 

* See pamphlet: "Tracts for the People No. 7. Secession First — Co- 
operation After. ' ' 

•Howell Cobb to John Rutherford and Others, Aug. 12, 1851, Toombs, 
Stephens and Cobb Correspondence, 249-259. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 105 

The fourth of July in South Carolina was ordinarily a day 
devoted to patriotic exercises. There were bands, parades, pub- 
lic dinners, the reading of the Declaration of Independence, 
much oratory and many toasts. Independence day in 1851, how- 
ever, was devoted in all sections of the state not to praise of the 
Union but to its condemnation in violent and bitter language. 
Rhett and other fiery orators recounted the wrongs of the South, 
the injustice and oppression that she suffered in the Union, and 
vehemently asserted that every consideration of honor and self- 
interest and self-preservation demanded a dissolution of that 
Union. As one speaker expressed it, the people of South Caro- 
lina had assembled, not as on former occasions to honor the day, 
but to hear the recital of their wrongs. Toasts were offered with 
sentiments such as these: ''The Government of the United States 
—A sectional tyranny, a free soil monopoly of the rights, the 
treasure, and the territory of the South," and: "The Union— A 
servile yoke to the Southern States." ^^ 

While the secessionists were the leaders in most of these 
celebrations, in Greenville the Unionists and the cooperationists 
held their first great meeting in opposition to secession. Before 
a crowd estimated at four thousand, letters from William C. 
Preston, Judge John Benton O'Neall, Senator A. P. Butler, Joel 
R. Poinsett, Francis Lieber and others opposed to secession were 
read. Waddy Thompson addressed the meeting and B. F. Perry 
offered the report and resolutions which were adopted. The res- 
olutions were lengthy. They praised slavery as an institution 
beneficial both to the slave and to the country, and they declared 
that the people of Greenville would defend it at all hazards and 
to the last extremity. But secession, they pointed out, would 
destroy slavery in South Carolina, involve the country in ruin- 

^0 South Carolinian, July 1.5, 1851. Pamphlet: "Substance of an Ad- 
dress delivered on the Fourth of July, 1851 by Hon. Richard DeTre- 

ville. ' ' 



106 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

ous taxation and civil war, and result in dishonor and disgrace to 
the state. They looked to cooperation for the defense of South- 
ern rights, and recommended that anti-secession meetings be 
held throughout the state. They demanded that the convention, 
"so revolutionary in its purposes and so unfairly elected by a 
minority of the people of South Carolina," be not convened, 
and that in the event of its assembling the Greenville delegates 
vote against secession. The final resolution declared that if an 
ordinance of secession should be passed and not submitted to the 
people for ratitication, it would "be treated as a nullity by a 
large majority of the people of the State. "^^ By the end of 
July a number of other meetings opposed to separate secession 
by South Carolina had been held, and the definite campaign of 
the cooperationists thus begun. Except in a very few districts 
this party had no formal organization. 

The secessionists controlled most of the local as well as the 
state organization of the Southern Rights Association. The 
Charleston Association, however, was controlled by the coopera- 
tionists. Its committee of safety had met regularly for some 
months after the organization of the association in the preceding 
October, though with never more than thirteen of the thirty- 
three members present. It had been active in publishing tracts 
and pamphlets and had conducted a somewhat extensive corre- 
spondence. But soon after the Charleston convention of South- 
ern Rights Associations the committee had ceased to meet. ^^ Nor 
was a call issued for the regular meeting of the association for 
July 1, as provided for in the constitution of the organization. 
The secessionists charged, with truth, that the officers had be- 
come non-actionists and desired to abolish the association, and 
they issued a call for the formation of a new association. On 

"Evening News, July 14, 1851; Southern Patriot, July 11, 18, 18.51. 
'^ Statement of I. W. Hayne, chairman of the committee, in Mercury, 
July 14, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 107 

July 23 the secessionists of Charleston organized their Auxiliary 
Southern Rights Association. ^^ Five days later their first reg- 
ular monthly meeting was addressed by Rhett. Their platform 
was essentially that of the May convention of Southern Rights 
Associations, that South Carolina could not wait for any new is- 
sue to be presented, and failing within a reasonable time to obtain 
the cooperation of the other Southern states, should withdraw 
alone from the Union. ^* 

The opposition to secession was formally launched in 
Charleston when almost 1200 citizens of that city signed a call 
for a public meeting to give expression to the views of those who 
were "in favor of Co-operation for the purpose of resistance to 

the aggressions of the Federal Government but opposed the 

Separate Secession of South Carolina from the Union under ex- 
isting circumstances. ' ' The meeting was held on the evening of 
July 29. Letters from Cheves, Orr, and Col. James Chesnut, 
Jr., approving the objects of the meeting, were read and later 
published. Butler and Barnwell spoke in opposition to separate 
state action. The temper of the meeting was well shown when it 
laid on the table by an overwhelming vote a resolution declaring 
that it would be treason for any South Carolinian to oppose 
separate secession, if that course of action should be resolved 
upon by the constitutional authorities of the state. 

The wording of the call for this meeting gives in brief the 
position of those opposed to separate state secession. This posi- 
tion was set forth at length in a series of six resolutions which 
the meeting adopted. On the platform formed by these resolu- 
tions the cooperationists made their fight against separate se- 
cession. The first declared that measures taken by the North 
indicated a deep-rooted hostility to the interests of the South 



"ibid., July 22, 24, 1851. 
" Courier, July 30, 1851. 



108 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

and a settled purpose to deprive the Southern states of their 
original rank as sovereigns and equals in the Confederaej^ and 
that the inevitable result must ultimately be the entire aboli- 
tion of slavery and the erection of a consolidated government in 
place of the Federal Union. The second resolution expressed the 
belief of the meeting that the time had come when the Union 
should be dissolved and a Southern confederacy organized, but 
declared a willingness to try any plan short of dissolving the 
Union, which the sister states of South Carolina might propose 
for the restoration of equal rights and for the provision of ade- 
quate guarantees for the future security of the Southern states. 
The third stated that the proper mode of procedure for South 
Carolina was to make common cause with her aggrieved confed- 
erates and to "unite with them in council and action to obtain 
redress for our common wrongs; 'such concert of action,' ac- 
cording to the views of our own Calhoun, being 'the one thing 
needful,' whether to save the Union, or if (as we believe) that 
be now too late, then 'to save ourselves.' " The fourth resolu- 
tion read as follows: 

"Resolved, That in the present aspect of our political af- 
fairs we deprecate separate secession of South Carolina from 
the Union : 1st. Because it is due to our Southern confederates 
having a common interest and threatened by a common danger, 
to take counsel with them, and especially with such of their cit- 
izens as are known to be our faithful and devoted friends, as to 
the mode and measure of redress for our common wrongs ; and 
because our precipitate secession from the Union, in opposition 
to their views and wishes, would seem as if we claimed to be the 
exclusive champions of Southern Rights, an assumption which 
could not but be regarded as arrogant in us, and insulting to 
them — thus, in place of harmony of feeling, and concert of ac- 
tion, provoking jealousies, and sowing the seeds of discord be- 
tween us and our natural allies, and operating to prevent the 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 109 

formation of a Southern Confederacy. 2. Because our separate 
secession would be eminently premature and unwise at this time, 
when we may fairly calculate on the cooperation of other States 
at no distant period, since the eflPect of renewed agitation and 
continued aggression by Northern fanatics — results which may 
be regarded as absolutely certain, must inevitably be, to bring 
up some of our sister states of the South to the same position 
which we now occupy, and then operate to ensure the formation 
of a Southern Confederacy. 3d. Because South Carolina, by 
separate secession, would be placed in the attitude of a foreign 
government to the other slaveholding states of this Union, the 
effect of which would be, that, under the laws of Congress, pro- 
hibiting the migration or importation of slaves from a foreign 
country into the United States, we should be subjected practic- 
ally to the 'Wilmot Proviso,' in its most aggravated form. 4th: 
Because in all her public resolves, South Carolina has given no 
other pledge — has avowed no other determination, than to co- 
operate with her sister states of the South in resisting these ag- 
gressions ; and, finally, because in the present posture of affairs, 
to dissolve our union with the South, and thus isolate ourselves 
from the sympathies and support of those with whom we are 
bound together in a common destiny, would be not only abortive 
as a measure of deliverance, but if not utterly suicidal in its ef- 
fects, in the highest degree dangerous to the stability of our 
Institutions. ' ' 

While the fourth resolution thus opposed separate secession, 
the fifth upheld the right of secession as essential to the sover- 
eignty and freedom of each member of the Union, a right no 
longer to be questioned. The sixth declared that the hope of 
the South for deliverance rested on the formation of a Southern 
confederacy. It also set forth the position of the cooperationists 
relative to the action that the state convention should take. It 
recommended that the convention devise measures to bring about 



110 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

a system of concert and cooperation among the slave states in re- 
sisting the aggressions of the federal government, and also to de- 
termine what relation to that government it should meanwhile 
become South Carolina to occupy, and at the same time to pre- 
scribe to the constitutional authorities of the state such a course 
of action as would "enable them to take advantage of all emer- 
gencies, and be prepared for all results." 

These were exceedingly vague recommendations for the state 
convention. Likewise vague were the avowed purposes of the 
Committee of Vigilance and Conference and the Committee of 
Correspondence for the creation of which the meeting made pro- 
vision. The purpose of the former was to recommend measures 
to unite the public sentiment of the citj' and of the state in sup- 
port of the principles expressed in the foregoing resolutions. 
That of the latter committee was to correspond with the citizens 
of South Carolina and other states for the purpose of combining 
Southern feeling and making it conduce to united Southern ac- 
tion. ^■' The cooperationists, as they called themselves, Avere bet- 
ter able to fight secession than to propose any definite and prac- 
ticable plan for cooperative action in forming a new confederacy 
or, indeed, for cooperative action of anj^ kind. 

Thus formally launched, the campaign against secession and 
the counter campaign thus forced upon the secessionists in de- 
fense of their policy, soon developed into the most bitter and 
most hotly contested that the state had knoAATi since the days of 
the controversy over nullification. In all sections of the state 
the partizans of both factions held mass meetings, barbecues, 
public dinners, parades. Orators of the day divided their 
speeches between denunciation of the North and denunciation of 
those who opposed their particular remedy for the evils suffered 



'"Pamphlet: "Southern Rights Documents. Co-operation meeting held 
in Charleston, S. C, July 29, 1851." 



The Campaign and Election op 1851 111 

from a continuance of the political union with the North. The 
secessionists spoke thus of the measure advocated by their op- 
ponents: "Co-operation, The name which makes cowardice re- 
spectable, and the cloak which conceals treason to South Caro- 
lina. ' ' On the other hand the separate secession of South Caro- 
lina was termed the wildest folly of self-seeking men, a measure 
that would result in inevitable ruin and humiliation. The news- 
papers of both parties were filled with editorials, speeches, and 
anonymous contributions on the questions of secession and coop- 
eration. Pamphlets by the hundreds were printed and distri- 
buted throughout the state. 

In advocacy of secession Robert Barnwell Rhett was per- 
haps the most ardent worker. For more than two months Rhett 
toured the state delivering speeches in all sections. His argu- 
ments did not vary greatly from those given in other speeches 
that have been considered. He traced the history of abolition 
and Northern aggression upon slavery to prove his contention 
that when sui^cient free states should be created out of the ter- 
ritories of the United States the institution of slavery would be 
abolished by constitutional amendment. Furthermore, he con- 
tended that in addition to the slavery question the South was op- 
pressed and discriminated against in both the collection and 
expenditure of revenue, and on these grounds found additional 
justification for secession. He declared that the secession of 
South Carolina could have only two possible results : either the 
other Southern states would be forced to join her in the forma- 
tion of a Southern confederacy, or South Carolina would main- 
tain herself as an independent and prosperous state. He urged 
that the only method by which cooperation could be secured was 
the separate secession of South Carolina. ^'^ 

This idea, that the secession of South Carolina would be fol- 

" See speeches July 4 in Chester District and Sept. 2 in Lancaster. 
Mercury July 8, Sept. 8, 1851. 



112 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

lowed by the cooperation of other states, was constantly urged by 
the speakers and the newspapers which supported the cause of 
separate state secession. Such was the promise made to the peo- 
ple of the First Congressional District in an address written by 
William H, Gist, later governor of South Carolina, and issued by 
the convention of the secessionists of that District: "By this 
movement [secession] a practical issue will be made, and the 
people of the South no longer deluded by the politicians will 
rush to our rescue, and upon the ruins of the old corrupt govern- 
ment will be established a Southern Confederacy, uniting a peo- 
ple by the indissoluble bonds of a like institution and similar 
pursuits, and commanding the respect and admiration of the 
world."" Congressman Wallace from this district came out 
definitely for secession as the surest way to obtain cooperation. 
But with regard to Ehett's other idea, Wallace said: "The sepa-' 
rate existence of South Carolina is a phantom of the brain. ' ' ^^ 

Apparently this was a common feeling among the secession- 
ists for there was as little attention paid to this argument as 
there was great inistence that the secession party was the true 
cooperation parly. Yet even on this point some of the secession- 
ists wavered. Congressman John McQueen favored separate 
secession before the final adjournment of the state convention, ^° 
and he strongly urged this policy throughout his district. But 
he admitted that there was no good prospect that any other state 
would secede with South Carolina and he thought that no force 
would be used against the state by the federal government to 
compel civil war and the complete disruption of the Union. He 
furthermore admitted that secession would not perhaps at once 



"Spartan, Sept. 18, 1851. 

" Letter to Auxiliary Southern Rights Association of Charleston, 
Mercury, Aug. 27, 1851. 

"Letter of Aug. 23 in Spartan, Sept. 11, 1851; and Oct. 1, in Winyah 
Observer, Oct. 15, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 113 

realize the "entirely prosperous state of things which might be 
desired," and he continued in this rather discouraging strain: 
"If ruin should be our destiny, it is but that which all admit 
awaits us in the Union, and we should have the consolation, at 
least, to know we met it on the highway of right and honor. ' ' ^o 
This was hardly an attitude likely to convince many men of the 
desirability of separate secession. 

Other active secessionists were Maxcy Gregg and Governor 
Means. The governor thought that South Carolina would surely 
secede, and so expressed himself to the militia of the state which 
he reviewed during the summer. The Southern Patriot, which 
did not spare some of the secessionists, expressed itself thus re- 
garding one speech that the governor made: "His Excellency 
gave us a war speech but it was the speech of a gentleman. ' ' ^^ 

The cooperationists entered the contest at a considerable 
disadvantage. At first they had no newspapers. This was rem- 
edied to some extent as has been shown, but throughout the cam- 
paign they were opposed by a very great majority of the news- 
papers of the state. They lacked organization, save in a very few 
localities, while the secessionists controlled most of the Southern 
Rights Associations. Furthermore the secessionists controlled 
the majority of the delegates to the state convention. Most ser- 
ious of all, however, was the momentum of the disunion move- 
ment which the leaders of the cooperationists had fostered ; there 
was a spirit aroused in the people which they had worked to 
raise, a spirit of hostility to and even hatred of the Union, fos- 
tered by years of long agitation and countless resolutions pledg- 
ing themselves and the people to resistance "at all hazards and 
to the last extremity." To check the disunion movement, or at 
least to retain control of it and direct it and yet not counsel 

^ Letter to Charleston Auxiliary Southern Rights Association, Mercury, 
Aug. 27, 1851. 

" South Carolinian, Sept. 5, 1851. 



114 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

submission and the repudiation of all past pledges, was a difficult 
undertaking. Between state secession on the one hand and ab- 
ject submission and acquiescence in the measures which they 
had indignantly rejected on the other, the cooperationists had to 
steer a difficult course. 

The strength of the cooperationists was in their leaders and 
in the energy with which they attacked separate secession. 
Cheves, Barnwell, Butler, Memminger, and the other opponents 
of the secessionists, were men well known to the people. With 
some exceptions, of whom Khett was the chief, the secessionists 
were men of no great experience in public affairs and compara- 
tively unknown to the masses of the people. Yet Rhett was too 
radical in his opinions for some of the secessionists. Butler was 
fairly active in the campaign, making occasional speeches and 
writing letters to be read at various cooperation meetings. To a 
less extent Barnwell and Cheves did the same. Burt and Orr 
were active in their respective districts. But perhaps the most 
active of the cooperationists was C. G. Memminger who con- 
ducted a campaign in a number of districts comparable to the 
campaign that Rhett conducted for the opposing side. His 
speeches in opposition to secession were published and distrib- 
uted 'by the cooperationists. 

The secessionists also distributed in pamphlet form the fiery 
speech that Memminger had made at Pendleton the preceding 
October, a speech which concluded with these words: "If, how- 
ever, other Southern states should refuse to meet with us, and we 
are brought to the alternative of Submission or Resistance, for 
one, I say, let us secede from the Union and abide our fate for 
better or for worse. If we are to wear chains, I prefer that they 
should be put on me by force. I, at least, will have no part in 
forging them. ' ' ^- 

" Pamphlet: '"Speech delivered by Col. C. G. Memminger at the 

Mass Meeting in Pendleton. ' ' 



The Campaign and Election op 1851 115 

When he was campaigning against secession in the summer 
of 1851 this speech and especially the last paragraph caused 
Memminger considerable embarrassment. He explained that in 
urging secession he was unguarded in not including the time 
element, that he did not mean that efforts at cooperation should 
be given up in one year, when ten years had been required to se- 
cure it for the Revolution. He admitted that his words had not 
been carefully weighed or misconstructions guarded against, and 
explained that he was aroused by the recital of the wrongs of the 
South and "was urging on the mountain population to resist in- 
justice, the pressure of which was less realized where few slaves 
existed. ' ' He declared that the choice to be made by South Car- 
olina was between existence as an independent nation or the 
adoption of measures to bring about the union of the South. He 
refuted the contention of the secessionists that the state was 
pledged to secession, declaring that all her steps had been taken 
only for cooperation in secession. He counseled cooperation as 
the course that South Carolina should continue to pursue, and 
urged that for this course sufficient time should be allowed. First 
there must be secured concert of opinion, then concert in council, 
and then concert in action. By pursuing this course he believed 
that the South would obtain the protection of her rights in the 
Union or stand alone as a Southern Confederacy. He assured 
his hearers that such a confederacy would eventually be 
formed. ^^ 

Memminger was no more definite in his proposals when he 
advocated cooperation than the other leaders of his faction. Ac- 
cused by the secessionists of being no better than abject submis- 
sionists and challenged to state how they would secure the coop- 

" Pamphlet: "Southern Rights and Co-operation Documents, No. 7. 
Speech of Mr. Memminger at a public meeting of the friends of co-opera- 
tion in the cause of Southern Rights, held in Charleston, September 2.3, 

1851 " Reprinted in full in Henry D. Capers, Life and Times of 

C. G. Memminger, 204-222. 



116 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

eration they advocated, the most effective reply of the coopera- 
tionists was to attack the policy of separate secession. The seces- 
sionists argued that the carrying out of their policy would result 
either in coercion by the federal government and the coopera- 
tion of the other Southern states in resisting coercion, thus ef- 
fectively destroying the Union, or in the peaceful existence of 
South Carolina as a very prosperous and independent state, an 
example to the other slave states of the beneficial results of a 
separation from the oppressive Union. They placed the greater 
emphasis of their arguments, however, on the prospective coop- 
eration to follow secession. 

The eo-operationists, on the other hand, contended that se- 
cession would not bring the South to the aid of the state, and 
they centered their attack upon the idea of the separate exist- 
ence of South Carolina as an independent nation. Some argued 
as did Senator Butler that coercion would not be attempted by 
the federal government in a form which would bring the other 
Southern states to the aid of South Carolina. Others agreed 
with Barnwell that coercion would be applied, that no other state 
would even then give her sympathy or aid, and that the result 
would be the complete defeat and humiliation of the state. All 
agreed that independent existence for South Carolina would 
mean only increased burdens of taxation and the ruin of all 
classes of the population. ^* Great stress was laid on the conten- 
tion that the cause for which South Carolina stood was not her 
cause alone but the cause of the whole South, that she should not 
separate herself from her sister states whose interests were iden- 
tical with hers, but that she should be content to wait and act 



" For the argument on both sides of this question see pamphlets : 

"Separate State Secession, Practically Discussed by Rutledge," and 

"Southern Rights and Co-operation Documents. The 'Rutledge' Pamphlet 
Reviewed " Rhett 's speeches eont ain the most extravagant asser- 
tions as to the benefits to South Carolina of independent nationality. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 117 

with them when they should come to the advanced positions that 
she held. 

One further aspect of the campaign of the summer of 1851 
remains to be considered. Memminger, when he explained his 
Pendleton speech as an effort to arouse the non-slaveholders, indi- 
cated the comparative indifference with which that element of 
the population viewed the question of resistance to measures an- 
tagonistic to the slave interests. The expressors and the mould- 
ers of public opinion who have left a record of their attitude 
were salveholders or closely allied in interest to that class. To a 
very great extent those who had no personal interest in the insti- 
tution of slavery were inarticulate. They had no means of ef- 
fectually voicing their opinions or their prejudices. They pos- 
sessed the right to vote, but they had no leaders, and the nature 
of the organization of the state government, the centralization of 
authority in the legislature, the absence of rival parties to bid 
for their support, mitigated against the political expression of 
their class interests. The extent of their class consciousness 
would be difficult to determine, though there is some evidence of 
a tendency towards that feeling of hostility towards slavery and 
the slave owning class which found expression in 1857 in Help- 
er's Impending Crisis. During the summer of 1849 great excite- 
ment had been created in the state b}' the circulation of pamph- 
lets and letters calculated to arouse the non-slaveholding class 
and purporting to be written by South Carolinians. The news- 
papers violently condemned the authors of this activity as ' ' that 
hellish crew who seek to break down the constitution of our state, 
and destroy the barriers which protect the rights of the poor 
white man, and keep alive in him the spirit and independence of 
a freeman. ' ' ^^ From the small amount of these writings which 
got into the papers, the following portion of an intercepted letter 

^^ Pendleton Messenger quoted in Spartan, Julv 12, 1849. 



118 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

signed "Brutus" and dated at Edgefield, July 10, 1849, may be 
quoted: "We have formed an association, for the purpose of 
comprehending in it all the non-slaveholders we can confide in, 
and for the purpose of producing such a change in public senti- 
ment, as to promote our interests against the oppressions of the 
slaveholding power. ' ' -^ 

In the campaign of the summer of 1851 the character of the 
appeal made by the secessionists to the non-slaveholders did not 
differ greatly from that made during the preceding j^ears of agi- 
tation against the Wilmot Proviso and the abolition movement. 
That appeal to passion has already been discussed. On the other 
hand there is evidence to indicate that some of those opposed to 
secession did not scruple to appeal to the prejudice of the non- 
slaveholder against the slaveholder. One newspaper editor thus 
commented on the policy of the cooperationists : " In some of the 
upper districts, the abolition argument is resorted to by the so- 
called cooperation party. They state that the excitement is got 
up by the slaveholders of South Carolina for the preservation of 
their property, and for the purpose of making the poor man sac- 
rifice his life on the field of battle, while the slaveholder is living 
in ease and luxury at home. We make no comments on these sen- 
timents. We simply say, the principles are infernal, and the doc- 
trine is the doctrine of devils." -" Some idea also of the appeal to 
the non-slaveholders made by the opponents of secession, as well 
as that made by the secessionists, may be obtained from the open 
letter written by one of the latter with the nom de plume of 
"Candor" and addressed "To the poor men of Spartanburg who 
are not slaveholders. ' ' ^^ 

"Why do we hear the North abused and the Union spoken 
of as a thing that once existed," he asked. "The answer is, be- 

^' Spartan, July 19, 1849. 

'''Palmetto Flag quoted in Spartan, Oct. 16, 1851. 

'' Spartan, Aug. 14, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 119 

cause of the existence of Slavery and the deep rooted hostility of 

the North to that institution Be ye not deceived ye honest 

hardworking poor man. I know a number of you think that the 
negroes will be freed and taken out of the country, and that then 
the laboring poor man can strike for any amount of wages he 
cares to exact. This I tell you is a fallacious idea, a mere phan- 
tom of the brain— no sirs, the North contemplates no such thing, 
but the North intends that we shall not have any of the advan- 
tages of extending our institutions— that we shall be penned up 
with our negroes in the Atlantic States and thereby be forced to 
free our negroes by self defense without an outlet and keep them 
amongst us, or by heavy taxes transport them ourselves, a por- 
tion of which taxes you must paij—wiW you do it? If not, we 
will be compelled to endure equality with them— we will be 
forced to allow them the same privileges we enjoy— because they 
will then outnumber us and can make us do just as they please— 
they would insist on a right to vote and send their negro breth- 
ren to our State Legislature and to the United States Congress— 
their children would go to school with your children — they would 
eat at your taUes, sleep in your beds and drink out of the same 
gourd that you do ; yea, they would do more than this, they would 
marry your daughters, in despite of everything you could do, 
and you will be deeply humiliated at the thought that your 
grand-children, those who shall inherit your name and property, 
are of mixed hlood." 

"You are told," the writer continued, "that your rights 
are not affected, that you have no interest in Slavery— that you 
ought not to fight for other men's property, the rich men's prop- 
erty You certainly see that when you take sides against 

your own country, j'our own State, it must tend to the ruin of 
every man in that state. They tell you further (and the major- 
ity of the non-slaveholders, we fear, in the upper Districts of 
South Carolina harbour this idle phantom) that, if the slaves are 



120 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

free, you get more for your labor than you now get. This is not 
SO; instead of increasing your wages it would diminish them 
from the present prices of common labor which is about eight or 
ten dollars per month to one or two dollars per month. ' ' 

Turning finally to the question of separate secession by 
South Carolina, "Candor" explained that if such a step were 
taken by the state, the other Southern states would be bound to 
sustain her. He urged the non-slaveholders not to vote against 
secession but to trust the members of the convention whom they 
had elected and the members of the legislature who had 
"thought it the wisest course to hold this convention, in order 
then and there to secede." "It is true," he concluded, "your 
Delegates may be instructed and they are williiig to abide by 
your decision ; but you once voted for them and as they are all 
high-minded honorable men, and true to themselves and true to 
you ; would it not be better to abide by their decision, rather than 
have agitation in our midst, when there is so much need of the 
South being united at this time ? These Delegates are as deeply 
interested in the prosperity and happiness of the State as you 
are and it does seem to my mind, if the slaveholder can stand a 
dismemberment of the Union, the non-slaveholder will not sus- 
tain much damage by way of heavy taxes from the State. ' ' 

It was the contention of the cooperationists, repeatedly as- 
serted, that the election of delegates to the state convention had 
taken place the preceding February on such short notice and 
with so little explanation of its object that less than half of the 
people had participated. They admitted that that election had 
given control of the convention to the separate secessionists, but 
they denied that the majority in the convention represented the 
will of the majority of the people of the state, and they urged 
that the election of delegates to the Southern Congress furnished 
an opportunity for a fuller expression of the will of the people 
on the question of separate secession, and they declared that the 



The Campaign and Election op 1851 121 

election of delegates opposed to separate secession would furnish 
a manifestation of the will of the people which the convention 
must heed. ^^ Even Perry admitted that a majority in favor of 
delegates to the Southern Congress who favored secession would 
mean secession by South Carolina alone from the Union. '° The 
secessionists on their part accepted the coming election as the 
test of strength between the two parties. ^^ The days set by the 
legislature for the election were October 13 and 14, 1851. Dur- 
ing September both parties nominated their candidates in each 
congressional district, and conducted a vigorous campaign up to 
the very eve of the election. Of the candidates nominated by 
the secessionists the best known were Daniel Wallace, F. W. 
Pickens, and R. Barnwell Rhett ; by the cooperationists, James 
L. Orr, James Chesnut, Jr., and Congressman-elect William 
Aiken. 

No one expected that the Southern Congress proposed by 
the Nashville Convention and the South Carolina legislature 
would meet. The results of the elections occurring during the 
summer of 1851 in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi indicated 
clearly the acquiescence of the people of the South everywhere 
except in South Carolina in the finality of the Clay compromise 
measures. In Alabama the election of members of Congress 
which took place in August resulted in a victory for the Union- 
ists by a majority of more than 6,000. Early in September the 
people of Mississippi chose Unionists from forty-one of the fifty- 
nine counties as delegates to the state convention. The total 



'* Southern Patriot, Aug. 29, 1851; Evening News, Oct. 11, 1851; Ad- 
dress to Voters by Convention of Southern Rights and Co-operation Party 
of the Fourth District, Sept. 8th in Courier, Sept. 17, 1851: Address to 
Voters of Charleston District by Co-operation Meeting, Sept. 23d, in Mer- 
cury, Sept. 24, 1851. 

"^Southern Patriot, Oct. 2, 1851. 

"^ South Carolinian, Aug. 23; Winyah Observer, Sept. 3; Mercury, 
Sept. 9, 1851. 



122 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

vote indicated a majority of more than 7,000 for the Unionists. 
On October 7th the people of Georgia elected Howell Cobb gov- 
ernor by a majority of almost 19,000 votes, and thereby affirmed 
the platform adopted by their convention of the preceding De- 
cember. ^* 

It was to Mississippi that the disunionists of South Carolina 
had looked most hopefully for aid and comfort. The result of 
the election in that state was accepted by both factions in South 
Carolina as proof of the validity of their views on the action that 
South Carolina should take. The Mercury declared that it ex- 
tinguished the last hope of cooperation unless the state chose ' ' to 
cooperate in submission. " ^^ One of the organs of the coopera- 
tionists viewed the Mississippi election as a sure indication of 
Southern sentiment as to secession, and declared that as each 
election took place in the South, the evidence became more and 
more cumulative against the separate-actionists of South Caro- 
lina. ^* Though some of the cooperationists continued to claim 
that the issue was ' ' Separate State Secession or a Southern Con- 
federacy," ^^ the South Carolinian expressed the true issue when 
it declared that the question had narrowed down to that of re- 
sistance to past wrongs, and that the only choice left to the state 
was either to cooperate with Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and 
Mississippi in submission, or to secede alone. ^° This was the 
choice to be made by the voters of South Carolina when they 
went thru the form of choosing delegates to a Southern congress 
that would never meet. 

Hammond had taken no part in the campaign but he was 

"Eesults of the elections given in Harper's Monthly Magazine, III, 
557, 694, 840; IV, 120. 

"Sept. 10, 1851. 

'^Evening News, Sept. 10, 1851. 

^ Convention of Co-operationists of Fourth District, Address to the 
voters, in Courier, Sept. 17, 1851. 

^ Sept. 24, Oet. 13, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election of 1851 123 

bitter enough against the secessionists whom he characterized as 
' ' the insane instruments — ^bent upon butchering in their way the 
glorious common cause." He was even inclined to think that it 
might be well for the secessionists to carry South Carolina out of 
the Union, it being perhaps indispensible for the peace and wel- 
fare of the country that the state have her comb cut. Regarding 
his opnion as to the expected results of the election in South 
Carolina, he wrote: "I apprehend that the Secessionists will 
carry the State by a large majority on Monday. They are well 
organized and much excited and will attend the polls while half 
of those who would be cooperationists if they were anything, are 

afraid even to vote lest they get into trouble some way The 

other side have the topics and will beat them on the stump with 
the mobs. ' ' ^^ 

The election resulted in a decided victory for the coopera- 
tionists who elected their candidates in six of the seven Con- 
gressional districts. They secured a majority of the votes in 
twenty-five of the forty-four assembly districts, and they cast a 
total vote in the state of 25,045 to their opponents' 17,710. The 
distribution of the vote for and against separate secession is 
significant. The only Congressional district carried by the se- 
cessionists was the seventh, in the southwestern corner of the 
state, the district which Rhett had formerly represented in Con- 
gress. Charleston voted 2454 for and 1018 against the coopera- 
tionists, a total said to be the greatest ever cast in that city. The 
secessionists carried all but three of the low-country parishes. 
In the up-country they carried only three districts, Laurens, 
Fairfield, and Union, the home of Daniel Wallace. Another 
basis of comparison may well be used than the geographical one. 
Including Charleston as one, there were in South Carolina only 
ten districts in which the majority of the population was white. 

" Hammond to W. G. Simms, Oct. 11, 1851, Hammond MSS. 



124 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

The cooperationists carried all of these, and carried eight of them 
by a majority of more than two to one. There were fifteen par- 
ishes in whch the negroes composed from 74 to 94 per cent of 
the population. The secessionists carried all but two of these, 
and carried them by large majorities. ^* 

The foregoing analysis of the vote seems to indicate that the 
non-slaveholders formed one of the large elements in the vote 
against secession. At least one manifestation of their attitude 
on the election days got into the papers. It was reported that 
near Cheraw in Chesterfield District thirty or forty men marched 
together to the polls applauding their leader who shouted, "Damn 
the negroes and their masters." This incident, said the editor 
who narrated it, was sufficient to show the feeling already dif- 
fused into a portion of the people. Such individuals, he said, 
were to be found in every community. ^^ The same editor also 
gave one of the very few contemporary analyses of the elements 
making up the cooperation party. "They have triumphed," he 
wrote in the bitterness of defeat, "but they have succeeded in 
instilling into the minds of a portion of our population senti- 
ments at war with our domestic institutions and dangerous to 
our future peace. The spirit of war upon slavery has been in- 
voked to fill up their ranks We have among us idolizers 

of the Union — men who think it treason to talk of resistance 
to the federal government; we have among us gambling politi- 
cians who would barter away their very souls for profit or place ; 
gentlemen of elegant leisure whose voluptuous dreams and sybar- 
itic ease must not be broken or disturbed by clamors for independ- 
ence ; gentlemen whose hearts and possessions are in other States 
to be endangered by the secession of South Carolina; and last 



"Vote given in Mercury, Oct. 29; Southern Patriot, Nov. 6; South Car- 
olinian, Oct. 25, 1851. 

'^ Black River Watchman (Sumterville), Nov. 22, 1851. 



The Campaign and Election op 1851 125 

but not least, we have among us a class who look with envy and 
dislike upon all who are so fortunate as to own a slave and who 
will never under any circumstances lend their support for its 
maintenance. ' ' *" 

The results of the election were well summarized by Peti- 
gru in a letter to Daniel Webster: "On the 13th we had an 
election which turned upon secession or no secession, and the se- 
cession or revolution party has been beaten upwards of 7,000 
votes. But it would be far too much to set this down as a union 
victory. The opposition to disunion has been made under cover 
of the same principles that the secession party professes. The 

manifestoes of both parties are the same in the main But 

the no secession party were joined by all the Union men, or near- 
ly so ; the rest refusing to vote. And the practical effect of their 
endeavors is to put down the agitation, tho they pretend that it 
is their intention to agitate disunion until all the South is of 
their party. They are blind or pretend to be blind to the evi- 
dence that the South does not join them because they are wrong. 

These are the cooperationists who with the union men have 

taken the state from Rhett and broken as I think the spell that 
Mr. Calhoun left." Petigru expressed the belief that, public 
opinion being so decidedly pronounced against a direct attempt 
at disunion, it was doubtful whether the state convention would 
ever meet. He concluded, "May such be the end of such ma- 
chinations now and forever."*^ 



Ibid., Oct. 18, 18.51. 

Petigru to Webster, Oct. 22, 1851, Webster MvSS. 



CHAPTER VII 

The State Convention 

The victory of the cooperationists in the election of delegates 
to the Southern congress was acknowledged by all parties to have 
settled the question of secession for the time being. The South- 
ern Standard declared that the election expressed the will of the 
people of South Carolina "opposed not only to immediate seces- 
sion, but to secession immediate or remote, unlesss with the pre- 
viously ascertained cooperation of the other Southern States.""* 
The secession papers at first accepted the result as a Waterloo 
for their policy, placing South Carolina on the Georgia platform 
of submission without Georgia's pledges of resistance to future 
aggression. ^ One secession editor thus viewed the result of the 
election as determining the submission of South Carolina to the 
federal government : ' ' All the blustering and vaporing, and ' all 
hazard and to the last extremity' resolutions were idle boastings. 

Messrs. Butler, Barnwell and Cheves have destroyed the 

armed men which were about to rise from the dragon's teeth 
sowed by themselves."^ Most of the secession papers, however, 
including those which had at first viewed the election as deter- 
mining the final submission of South Carolina, began to insist 
that the cooperationists now come forward with some definite 
proposition to which all but the Unionists and abject submis- 
sionists could give their support. * The Mercury denied that as 
between resistance and submission the election had decided any- 

^ Nov. 8, quoted in South Carolinian, Nov. 12, 1851. 

^Blacl: River Watchman, Oct. 18, 1851; Spartan, Oct. 23, 1851. 

= Winyah Observer, Oct. 22, 1851. 

* Ibid., Oct. 29; Black Eiver Watchman, Nov. 8, 29; Mercury, Nov. 8; 
Sotith Carolinian, Nov. 7; Greenville Mountaineer quoted in Mercury, Nov. 
1, 1851. 



The State Convention 127 

thing, and declared that the convention would devise some ef- 
fectual and decisive plan of resistance. ^ 

This demand from the secession papers that the coopera- 
tionists take some steps towards the redemption of their disunion 
pledge was the policy determined upon by the Central Commit- 
tee of the Southern Rights Association of the State of South Car- 
olina. This committee met in Columbia soon after the election 
and under the date of Oct. 24, 1851, issued a circular "For Con- 
fidential circulation among the members of the Secession Par- 
ty. " "^ In this they reviewed the election and attributed 
their defeat to the combined opposition of two parties: the first 
and much the smaller in number and hitherto in power was the 
Union party, the object of which was adherence to the Union at 
the expense of whatever submission and degradation might be re 
quired ; the second, larger and more powerful, was composed of 
disunion men who desired resistance but regarded the coopera- 
tion of other states as indispensable or of such paramount im- 
portance as not to justify the immediate separate action of South 
Carolina. Between these two parties, the secessionists explained, 
there w^as a third class which, though professing the principles 
of the latter party, was really desirous of defeating all resist- 
ance to past wrongs. They feared that this class might at any 
moment bring a sudden and great accession of power to the hith- 
erto comparatively insignificant Union party, to whose benefit 
the success of the coalition had so far inured. The secession 
party, they asserted, was much stronger than either of the oppos 
ing parties taken separately. ' ' It would have been much stronger 
than the coalition," they explained, "but for the effect upon 
large masses of voters, of an ignominious panic. Throughout the 
State, with every appearance of systematic operation, alarms 
and falsehoods were covertly disseminated among the more igno- 

= Oct. 18, 1851. 

' Printed in Southern Patriot, Jan. 8, 1852. 



128 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

rant class. They were told that if they joined the Secession par- 
ty, or attended meetings of that party, they would forthwith be 
drafted for military service. They were told that they would 
be taxed beyond their ability to pay. Non-slaveholders were 
told that they have no interest in the question of slavery — and 
that all the horrors and sufferings of war would be brought upon 

them, for the exclusive advantage of their richer neighbors 

A sufficient number of voters were thus controlled to reduce the 
party of action from a great majority to a minority." 

The circular then outlined the policy to be pursued by the 
secessionists. Though preserving its organization that party 
should make no demonstration, but should attempt to draw a 
demonstration from the resistance wing of the opposition. The 
Central Committee urged the propriety of efforts through private 
conversations and through the press to arouse a sense of respon- 
sibility among the true resistance men who opposed secession, 
to induce them to declare what they proposed to do to prove 
their sincerity and to redeem the honor of the state. Thus the 
secessionists hoped to separate the true resistance men among 
the cooperationists from the submissionists before it should be- 
come too late. The Central Committee expressed a willingness to 
support any measure holding out hope of effectual resistance or 
leading to secession which the cooperationists might propose. 
"Submission," it said, "is not yet to be contemplated as our 
inevitable destiny'." In conformity with the policy of ceasing 
to agitate the remedy of secession and of placing upon the vic- 
torious cooperationists the burden of devising the measures for 
resistance, the Central Committee decided to postpone the serai- 
annual meeting of the Central Southern Rights Association and 
await the fulfilment of their policy. 

James H. Hammond, though opposed to secession and ap- 



The State Convention 129 

pealed to by the cooperationists to speak out, ^ had taken no act- 
ive part in the bitter campaign which closed with the election in 
October. During the summer he sulked in retirement, bitterly 
hostile to Rhett and sincerely opposed to secession, but fearful 
that the only result of the factional fight in progress would be 
a ' ' degrading submission under some absurd form of blus- 
ter. ' ' ^ He had drawn up, however, and had published anony- 
mously in the Mercury a "Plan of State Action," ^ the professed 
purpose of which was asserted to be to furnish a "plan of action 
short of actual secession yet decidedly in advance of any step 
taken by this or any other State in our controversy with the Fed- 
eral Government — or rather with the People of the North." 

The plan was drawn up in the form of an ordinance and had 
been sent to his friend A. P. Aldrich for introduction into the 
convention when that body should meet. It was a lengthy docu- 
ment of nine articles. It began with a defense of slavery, and it 
asserted that as the non-slaveholding states had used their con- 
trol of the government of the United States to impose high im- 
port duties and to arrest the extension of slavery for the purpose 
of hastening its abolition, and as there was no prospect of any 
change, ' ' it follows that the existing Union of the non-slavehold- 
ing States and the slaveholding States of North America, is and 
ever will be wholly incompatible with the free development of 
the natural advantages of the latter States, and their attainment 
to that position of power, prosperity and happiness to which 
they are justly entitled." The ordinance then asserted that 
South Carolina therefore desired the dissolution of the Union 
and the formation of a Southern confederacy, and only refrained 
from withdrawing from the Union because she was convinced 

' A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, May 16, 20, 1851, Hammond MSS. 
' Hammond to Simms, July 1, 1851, ibid. 

* Broadside in Hammond MSS., v. XVIII ; see also Hammond to 
Simms, ibid. 



130 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

that no other states would join her and because she did not con- 
sider herself able to maintain alone a dignified, even if a peace- 
ful, independence. It then declared that the time would soon 
come when other states would join South Carolina, and that in 
the meantime there could be no utility in maintaining those re- 
lations with the federal government which could be dissolved 
without a conflict. To this end the ordinance proposed the 
following fundamental laws to be ordained by the convention : 
that South Carolina appoint no presidential electors, send no 
representatives or senators to Congress, accept no appropriations 
from the federal government, and allow none of its citizens to 
hold any but local civil offices in the state under the federal gov- 
ernment ; that the legislature impose a double tax on property in 
South Carolina owned by those who should reside exceeding one 
month of each .year in any non-slaveholding state or states, and 
in so far as constitutional impose a tax upon all products of the 
non-slaveholding states imported into South Carolina ; and final- 
ly, that the legislature encourage manufacturing, internal im- 
provements, agriculture, and direct trade with foreign nations. 
A note to Hammand's "plan" explained that by it a collision 
with the federal government would be avoided yet South Caro- 
lina be morally out of the Union, and that when Georgia, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi and Florida should come to her position the 
Union would be dissolved and a Southern confederacy formed. 
At the time of its publication the plan attracted little atten- 
tion from either party in the state. With the defeat of seces- 
sion, however, some of the members of the state-action party 
turned to it as a possible program for the state convention. One 
secessionist wrote of it : " Secession is dead and I fear buried 
forever. I am therefore anxious to see any plan which makes 
a single step towards disunion. ' ' ^° Other secessionists sought by 

"James Jones to Hammond, Oct. 26, 1851, ibid. 



The State Convention 131 

conference and by correspondence to induce Hammond to under- 
take the formation of a new resistance party on the basis of his 
plan of action. They turned to him, one leader wrote, because 
they realized that Rhett's leadership could not give it success 
and because they could not trust Butler, Barnwell, Preston, 
Chesnut, Burt and Orr. They turned to Hammond, he said, 
because of his popularity with the masses, his freedom from any 
participation in the partisan campaign which had just closed, 
and because they believed he could devise and carry out some 
feasible plan of action looking to the withdrawal from the Union 
at the earliest moment of South Carolina and the cotton states. " 
Maxcy Gregg, one of the leaders of the secession party, con- 
sidered Hammond 's plan probably the only practicable measure 
to save South Carolina from hopeless submission. He suggested 
that Hammond's friends "should agitate the question at once, 
and commence the contest with those of their Party who refuse 
to join them in proposing it to the Secessionists as a middle 
ground to unite upon," and he appealed to Hammond to come 
forward as a leader of the truest, the staunchest, the most Caro- 
linian party that had ever existed in the state. ^^ From Charles- 
ton it was reported that the secessionists, defeated in their favor- 
ite scheme, were willing to fall back to the next line to their 
own, for which Hammond 's plan should form the basis. " If we 
find it formed," wrote a member of the convention, "we shall 
certainly fall in shoulder to shoulder with those that are there 
and battle with honest zeal. It is the only one that presents 
itself short of secession, that can save the State from hopeless 
disgrace. Though slow, it is sure progress towards the ultimate 
object and affords an opportunity to those who have vengeance 
to gratify, to enjoy the mortification of the submission men and 
the trading politicians who have brought up the State to its 

" John Cunningham to Hammond, Nov. 10, 1851, Hid. 
" Majxcy Gregg to Hammond, Nov. 14, 1851, ibid. 



132 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

present position and then joined the opposition from personal 
considerations — 'set the woods on fire and then run away.' " " 

Whether these overtures were sincere or not, Hammond was 
convinced that the secessionists were generally anxious to fall 
back on his plan, but wanted it pushed on them as a cooperation 
measure. As to whether or not the cooperationists could be in- 
duced to accept it, he was doubtful. He realized that the co- 
operation part}', whose sole bond of union was opposition to 
secession, could hardly move without breaking to pieces : ' ' Like 
a crowd collected to put out a fire, it must necessarily disperse 
as soon as the flames are got under." He was fearful not only 
that the "Union submission wing" of that party would convert 
the whole to submission, but that the resistance party in the 
other states, cut to pieces by Union victories everywhere, would 
be utterly extinguished unless South Carolina should make some 
forward movement and plant there as a rallying poijit the flag 
of resistance and disunion. " 

Hammond and Aldrieh conferred together and decided upon 
some modifications of the plan. These involved the striking out 
of all reference to a Southern confederacy, and the incorporation 
of provisions for the creation of a council of safety to advise 
with the authorities of the other states and with the South Caro- 
lina legislature regarding the federal relations of the slavehold- 
ing states, and for giving to the legislature the power to declare 
South Carolina no loiiger a member of the Union as soon as one 
or more of the slaveholding states should declare a readiness to 
withdraw from the Union. The most significant change was the 
incorporation of a clause expressing a willingness to make one 
more effort to preserve the Union, proposing an amendment to 
the Constitution whereby each section should elect a president. 

"James Jones to Hammond, Nov. 16, 18.51, ibid. 

"Hammond to John Cunningham, Nov. 14, 1851; Hammond to Simms, 
Nov. 21, 1851, ibid. 



The State Convention 133 

and providing that the South Carolina legislature should not put 
the ordinance into effect until sufficient time had been given for 
the acceptance of the proposed amendment. ^^ 

The idea of thus proposing "Calhoun's amendment," was 
soon dropped on the ground that it should not be a South Caro- 
lina movement, much to the relief of Aldrich who thus expressed 
himself regardirig it: "I am and have alv/ays been a disunion 
man. I do not believe that anything the South or North can do, 
can save the Union and I would not like to contribute anything 
toward^ saving it if I could. Yet for the sake of effecting the 
union of the South I have forced myself to say, that I would lend 
my aid in carrying out a scheme to prevent disunion. ' ' ^® 

The secessionists took a more favorable attitude towards the 
plan of state action than did the cooperationists. Both Hammond 
and Aldrich wrote to the Charleston leaders of the latter party 
but got little encouragement for the plan. Hayne thought that 
to urge it would only produce new distractions, and that no very 
decisive step should be taken. "The occasion has been lost," he 
said, "and cannot be recovered. " ^^ Barnwell found the situa- 
tion of the cooperationists as a party very embarrassing. He 
believed that no step looking to separate secession should be 
taken, but he recommended a speedy reconciliation with the se- 
cessionists in order to get rid of the Unionists. The Standard 
took ground against the "plan," and the Mercury fought shy of 
it. Aldrich, however, for the time being at least, believed that a 
resistance party that would still maintain South Carolina in a 
position of defiance could be formed from the secession party 
and the resistance men among the cooperationists. He emphat- 
ically declared, however, that he would never act with a party 



" A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, Nov. S, 1851 ; draft of proposed changes, 
Hammond MSS. 

"Aldrich to Hammond, Nov. 11, 1851, ibid. 
"I. W. Hayne to Hammond, Nov. 9, 1851, ibid. 



134 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

with Rhett as its leader and the Mercury as its exponent. "If 
Rhett takes any part in a movement, ' ' he wrote, " it is half dead 
the moment he touches it and whole dead when he emhraces it. 
If the Mercury supports a measure it is suspected from one end 
of the South to the other and we must get rid of both." ^^ 

The position of the cooperation party was embarassing, as 
Barnwell said. It had recently defeated the secessionists, but it 
possessed only a minority of the members of both the legislature 
and the state convention. It had defeated the secessionists on 
the professed platform of cooperative disunion and the secession- 
ists were demanding what steps would be taken by the victors to 
carry out their pledges. Early in November some of the leaders 
of the cooperationists held a caucus in Charleston to determine 
upon their policy, but came to no decision, save to meet again 
during the session of the legislature. ^" 

On November 25th the caucus of cooperationists from all 
sections of the state met in Columbia. The confidential circular 
which the secessionists had sent out late in October was read and 
created much excitement and a great distrust of Gregg and other 
secession leaders. It rendered hopeless the idea which Aldrich 
and some cooperationists had held that the secessionists were in 
earnest in taking up any plan proposed by their opponents and 
acting with them under their organization. The cooperationists 
suspected that a game might be played upon them, confusion 
thrown into their ranks, and under pressure of excitement se- 
cession forced upon the convention at the last moment. Ham- 
mond's plan met with little favor. On the question of calling 
the state convention, a decision incumbent upon the legislature, 
there was considerable division of sentiment, though the major- 
ity, influenced chiefly by fear of what the secession majority 
might do with that convention, preferred that it should never 

" Aldrich to Hammond, Nov. 10, 11, 1851, ibid. 
"Aldrich to Hammond, Nov. 11, 1851, ibid. 



The State Convention 135 

meet. ^° Unable or unwilling to agree upon any definite policy 
the caucus adjourned after declaring it inexpedient in view of 
the existing aspect of affairs to do more than indicate in a series 
of resolutions the platform on which, in the judgment of the cau- 
cus, the people of South Carolina had placed themselves by the 
recent election. 

These resolutions asserted that the state had decided that 
while the right of secession was fundamental and indispensable, 
its exercise by a single state without the assurance of support 
and the concurrence of other states was not an appropriate rem- 
edy for existing grievances nor sufficient safeguard against those 
which menaced in the future, and that any attempt to accom- 
plish this would be in contravention of the clear declaration of 
public will. The second resolution declared that the people of 
South Carolina had decided that concert of action among the 
slaveholding states was essential as a remedy for existing evils 
and as a protection against impending evils, and "that coopera- 
tion for these purposes ought to be earnestly sought after and 
promoted." The third, that South Carolina maintained a deep 
sense of her grievances and dangers and persevered in her de- 
termination to remove and avert them as soon as the cooperation 
of other states should give her action efficiency and render her 
security permanent. The two final resolutions recommended the 
preservation of the organization of those who desired to promote 
cooperation, and invited all parties to unite in pursuing this 
policy which the state had marked out. *^ 

Perry, of course, was not invited to attend the caucus of the 
cooperationists with whom he had fought shoulder to shoulder 
against secession. That measure defeated, he desired no further 
agitation of the question of resistance. He was in Columbia as a 



="" Aldrich to Hammond, Nov. 26, 28, 1851, ibid. 
'^Mercury, Dec. 2; South Carolinian, Dec. 2, 1851. 



136 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

member of the legislature late in November and wrote thus re- 
garding some of his former allies : "I am afraid there is a dis- 
position on the part of the co-operation leaders to keep up a fuss 
and excitement. If so, I shall turn our battery against them and 
assist any forces that may be in the field, whether secessionists or 
not, in demolishing them, and giving quiet to our country. The 
rank and file of the co-operation party are decidedly for repose, 
and will ultimately become good union men once more.'' '^"^ 

Such was the fear of many secession and some co-operation 
leaders, but efforts to effect a union of their forces were fruit- 
less. The former charged that the majority of the cooperation- 
ists were union men and subraissionists. '" Even the resistance 
men among the cooperationists were suspicious of the plans of 
the secessionists. They insisted that their defeated opponents 
not only acknowledge for the time that secession was hopeless 
but give it up as the policy of the state for existing grievances. 
The secessionists refusing to give up their cherished principle 
and accepting Hammond's plan only as a step towards ultimate 
secession and not, as Aldrich explained it to them, as a means to 
the establishment of a Southern confederacy, not a single co- 
operation leader was willing to lift a finger in aid of the forma- 
tion of any effective resistance organization. -* Hammond urged 
the necessity of the secessionists abandoning the policy of se- 
cession forever to prevent the creation of a union-submission 
party. The secessionists, hov;ever, were in no temper for a re- 
nunciation of faith and did not think that they should be re- 
quired to give up more than the idea of secession under existing 
circumstances. For the time being no understanding could be 
reached. Gregg well expressed the feeling of some secessionists, 
at least, when he later wrote : ' ' But if I consented to renounce 

^Southern Patriot, Dec. 4, 18.51. 

^' Lewis M. Ayer, Jr., to Hammond, Dec. 1, 1851, Hammond MSS. 

"Aldrich to Hammond, Dec. 9, 1851, ihid. 



The State Convention 137 

the right of secession — or what comes to the same thing — to de- 
clare that it must never be exercised separately, I should feel 
that I was abandoning the political faith of my whole life and 
turning consolidationist. A consolidation with Georgia and 
Tennessee I regard only not quite so great an evil as a consoli- 
dation with New York and Ohio. ' ' -''' 

The cooperationists came to no determination as to what 
should 'be their attitude towards the calling of the state conven- 
tion. It will be remembered that the act providing for the elec- 
tion of delegates to a state convention had not set a date for its 
assembling. It now devolved upon the legislature which met in 
November, 1851, to determine whether or not the convention 
should meet, and if so, on what date. A bill calling the conven- 
tion to meet on the fourth Monday in April, 1852, ^^ was intro- 
duced by the secessionists and adopted by the legislature. Partj^ 
lines were split on the question but the bill passed without ser- 
ious opposition. ^^ 

With the definite calling of the convention nothing remained 
to be done by the politicians and editors but to consider what the 
convention should do. And very little of this apparently was 
done. Perry feared that the convention might do some mischief 
and regretted that it had been called, but since it was to meet he 
thought that it should lay down a platform broad enough for the 
whole South and show that the state was ready to cooperate 
whenever necessary in defending her institutions and maintain- 
ing equal rights in the Union. -^ The Southern Standard was 
rather fearful that the convention in the control of the seces- 
sionists might adopt some measures which would hasten or in- 



^° Maxcy Gregg to Hammond, Mar. 29, 1852, ibid. 
="> S. €. Statutes at Large, XII, 100. 

"Mercury, Dec. 9, 1851. Debates summarized in South Carolinian, 
Dee. 6, 8, 1851. 

" Southern Patriot, Jan. 8, 1852. 



138 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

duce the measures of that party, and it thought that the conven- 
tion should do nothing, not even make pledges as to what the 
state would do in the future. ~'^ The secessionists were quiet, but 
as the time for the meeting of the convention drew near there 
was some discussion as to what it might accomplish. Everyone 
accepted the question of secession as dead. Both Congressman 
J. A. Woodward and Congressman Daniel Wallace urged in pub- 
lic letters that the chief duty of the convention was to restore 
harmony to the state and place the people of South Carolina 
where the legislature of 1850 found them, united on the State 
Rights Republican platform. ^° 

The idea of reconciliation met with a considerable degree of 
favor. The South Carolinian reported that the idea was being 
preached, and declared that the secessionists were willing for 
harmony on an honorable basis — on any basis of union which 
did not involve "desertion of state rights; or the merging of 
state sovereignty into the consolidation of section." " One rea- 
son for this desire for a reunion of parties was the fear of the 
growing power of the Union party in South Carolina. One 
journal thought that the convention could do much towards put- 
ting down this party and keeping up the spirit of opposition to 
the Union so that when the time should come for the South to 
dissolve the Union, South Carolina could be among the fore- 
most. ^^ There were some among the secessionists, however, who 
still thought that though the convention should not secede, it 
ought to take some definite action short of secession, by which 
State Rights and Sovereignty would be "practically asserted." 



*• Quoted in Southern Patriot, Feb. 12, 1852. 

** J. A. Woodward to Samuel G. Barkley, Mar. 16, Blaek 'River Watch- 
man, Apr. 3, 1852; D. Wallace to James Farrow, Apr. 12, Mercury, Apr. 
16, 1852. 

"Apr. 24, 1852. 

** Unionville Journal quoted in South Carolinian, Apr. 6, 1852. 



The State Convention 139 

Among these propositions were the following: withdraw the 
state's representation in Congress, abstain from presidential 
elections, and ordain prospective secession. ^^ Gregg still favored 
a modification of Hammond's plan, but even Aldrich among the 
cooperationists had given it up. ^* 

On April 26, 1852, the convention, elected fourteen months 
previously and controlled by the secessionists, met in Columbia. 
In accordance with long established custom Governor John H. 
Means was chosen president of the convention. The governor 
urged that the first duty of the convention was to heal the divis- 
ions in the state. "We meet together as members of one common 
family," he said, "whose interest, honor, and destiny are the 
same. A deep devotion to our country and its institutions should 
be the polar star to guide us in our course. The arm of our state, 
which was recently strong and ready to strike, has been para- 
lized alone by our dissensions. Let us heal them at once, that 
with firm and united strength we may meet the enemies of our 
institutions. Upon the union of our state, I solemnly believe, de- 
pends our destiny. ' ' ^^ 

Most of the work was done outside of the convention proper, 
in party caucus, or in the committee of twenty-one which 
was appointed to consider and report upon the act which 
had provided for the convention. This committee, with 
Langdon Cheves, the most influential member of the conven- 
tion, as chairman, was composed of twelve cooperationists, 
eight secessionists and one unionist. Cheves was very much 
afraid of the convention, which he called "an infernal machine," 
and was anxious to adjourn as quickly as possible. Effectual 
measures were taken to prevent discussion on the floor of the 

" Correspondent of Mercury, Columbia, Apr. 26, in Mercury, Apr, 28, 
1852. 

** Aldrich to Hammond, Apr. 20, 1852, Hammond MSS. 
" Journal of the State Convention of South Carolina, 9-10. 



140 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

convention by adopting a rule that motions to adjourn, to lay 
on the table, to adjourn a debate, etc., should be decided without 
debate after such short conversations as the president might 
permit. ^^ 

Thought possessed of a majority in the convention, the se- 
cessionists were reported to be in a snarl and to have no 
concert or policy. They requested of the cooperationists the aji- 
pointment of a committee of conference to consult with them and 
consider what measures tlie convention could harmoniously 
adopt. The cooperationists accepted and proposed at the first 
meeting of the conference that the convention affirm the right of 
secession, and state that thought the causes were sufficient to di- 
vide the Union, South Carolina withheld lier hand for want of 
aid from her sister states, but would be ready to leave the Union 
when any one or more states were ready to take the lead. The 
secessionists rejected this, and proposed, though not unanimous- 
ly, that the convention withdraw the delegaton from Congress, 
refuse to go into the presidential election, and ultimately upon 
some contingenc}', no matter what, secede. No compromise could 
be reached and the conference broke up in confusion. The se- 
cessionists caucused again and it was reported that they had de- 
cided to support an amendment to the constitution giving to the 
legislature the right to withdraw the state from the Union by a 
two-thirds' vote. Evidently this also was unacceptable to the 
cooperationists, for at another caucus of the secessionists those 
who desired conciliation and harmony for the state rejected all 
violent measures that had been proposed and decided to support 
the position of the cooperationists. Rhett was present at this 
caucus of his party, though he was not a meniber of the conven- 
tion, but a motion proposed by Gregg requesting him to address 



^ Ibid., 13, 14 ; editorial correspondence of the Southern Fatriut, May 
6, 1852; Aldrich to Hammond, May 3, 1852, Hammond MSS. 



The State Convention 141 

the meeting was not accepted. ^^ This was a severe rebuke from 
his party. 

On the floor of the convention a proposition, in which R. B. 
Rhett manifested great interest and which was made by his 
brother Edmund Rhett, to nullify the provision of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States that "the citizens of each State shall 
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the 
several states," so far as regards the citizens of Massachusetts 
and Vermont, and making it the duty of the legislature to pre- 
vent the citizens of those states entering, abiding, or holding pro • 
perty within South Carolina, was decisively rejected. ^^ The 
proposal to give the legislature the right to withdraw the state 
from the Union was defeated by a vote of 96 to 60. "'^ From the 
Committee of Twenty-one Perry submitted a minority report, 
signed only by himself, which was in effect a denial of the right 
of secession, though affirming the revolutionary right of establish- 
ing a nevv' government when the old one should have become de- 
structive of the ends for which it was instituted, and which 
sought to place South Carolina on the Georgia platform, pledged 
to resist future aggres.sions upon slavery. This report was laid on 
the table. '^^ The majority report from the Committee of Twenty- 
one was accepted by the Convention by a vote of 136 to 19, and 
after a five day session the convention adjourned and was de- 
clared by the president to be dissolved. The report of the Com- 
mittee of Twenty-one, representing the only action that was tak- 
en by the convention, in the form of a resolution and ordinance, 
read as follows : *^ 

"Resolved by the people of South Carolina in Convention 



»' Aldrich to Hammond, Apr. 28, May 3, 1852, Hammond MSS. 
""Journal of the Convention, 17. 
^Ibid., 16-17. 
*"Ibid., 18, 23. 24. 
"Ibid., 18, 19. 



142 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

assembled, That the frequent violations of the Constitution of the 
United States by the Federal Government, and its encroach- 
ments upon the reserved rights of the sovereign States of this 
Union, especially in relation to slavery, amply justify this State, 
so far as any duty or obligation to her confederates is involved, 
in dissolving at once all political connection with her co-States; 
and that she forbears the exercise of this manifest right of self- 
government from considerations of expediency only. 
An Ordinance to declare the right of this State to secede from 
the Federal Union. 

We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Conven- 
tion assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared 
and ordained, That South Carolina, in the exercise of her sov- 
ereign will, as an independent State, acceded to the Federal 
Union, known as the United States of America ; and that in the 
exercise of the same sovereign will, it is her right, without let, 
hindrance, or molestation from any power whatsoever, to secede 
from the said Federal Union : and that for the sufficiency of the 
causes which ma.y impel her to such separation, she is responsible 
alone, under God, to the tribunal of public opinion among the 
nations of the earth." 

Rhett considered that the action of the convention had de- 
termined that the position of South Carolina was submission 
and her policy cooperation, and deeming himself no proper rep 
resentative of such a position and policy he promptly resigned 
his seat in the United States Senate. *' Hammond declared, 
"The Report and Ordinance are too pitiful for comment."" 
But by the newspapers of the state the work of the convention 
was very well received. Some declared the ordinance a forward 
step ; others rejoiced that it dealt a blow to the Union party ; all 



** Rhett to Means, Apr. 30, May 5, 1852, in Mercury, May 10, 1852. 
** Hammond to Simms, May 14, 1852, Hammond MSS. 



The State Convention 143 

expressed great gratification that it had effected the harmonious 
reunion of the two resistance parties. 

Some months later Governor Means reviewed the whole 
course of the conflict and congratulated the state on the wise and 
patriotic course of the convention in healing the wounds and re- 
uniting the state. He thus interpreted the results of the conven- 
tion and explained the position of the state : ' ' Our destiny, for 
weal or for woe, is connected with the whole South. Further ag- 
gressions (which will surely come) will convince our sister 
Southern States that the institution upon which not only the 
prosperity of the South, but Republicanism itself depends, is no 
longer safe in the Union. Then we may hope that they will rise 
in the majesty of their strength and spirit, and, in conjunction 
with us, either force our rights to be respected in the Union, or 
take our place as a Southern Confederacy amongst the nations 
of the world."** 

** Message to the Legislature. 8. C. Senate Journal, 1852, 29-30. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In the following bibliography no attempt is made to list all 
of the material consulted in the preparation of this thesis. It 
has been thought sufficient to list only that material which has 
been of direct value, to most of which reference has been made in 
the footnotes. 

I. UNPUBLISHED SOURCES 

Claiborne MSS. This collection, in the possession of the Missis- 
sippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Missis- 
sippi, contains valuable correspondence between John A. 
Quitman and South Carolina secessionists. 

Hammond MSS. A large and exceedingly important collection 
of the letters and papers of James H. Hammond, for many 
years prominent in South Carolina politics. Library of 
Congress. 

Poinsett MSS. A collection of the correspondence of Joel R. 
Poinsett, a prominent and life-long leader of the South Car- 
olina Unionists. In the Library of the Pennsylvania His- 
torical Society, Philadelphia. 

Seabrook MSS. A small but very valuable collection of the cor- 
respondence of Whitemarsh B. Seabrook, Governor of South 
Carolina, 1848-1850. Library of Congress. 

Webster MSS. This collection of the papers of Daniel Webster 
in the Library of Congress contains occasional letters from 
South Carolina Whigs. 



146 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

II. PUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE, DIARIES, 
SPEECHES AND MEMOIRS 

Allston, Joseph Blyth, The Life and Times of James L. Petigru, 
in Charleston, S. C, Sunday News, Jan. 21-June 17, 1900. 
Very largely a collection of Petigru 's letters, occasion- 
ally of value for this thesis. 

Benton, Thomas Hart, Thirty Years' View, 2 vols., New York, 
1854. 

Calhoun, John C, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, edited 
by J. F. Jameson, in American Historical Association, An- 
nual Report, 1899, vol. II, Washington, 1900. 

. The Works of John C. Calhoun, edited hy R. K. Cralle, 

6 vols., New York, 1854-55. 

Claiborne, J. F. H., Life and Correspondence of John A. Quit- 
man, 2 vols., New York, 1860. 

Vol. II contains important correspondence between 
Quitman and influential South Carolina secessionists. 

Phillips, U. B., ed.. Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander 
Stephens and Howell Cobb, in American Historical Associa- 
tion, Annual Report, 1911, vol. II. 

Polk, James K., The Diary of James K. Polk, edited by M. M. 
Quaife, 4 vols., Chicago, 1910. 

III. PUBLIC DOCUMENTS 

Ames, H. V., ed., State Documents on Federal Relation^: the 
States and the United States, Philadelphia, 1911. 

Congressional Globe, 1846-1852. 

Congressional Documents, 1846-1852. 

Acts of General Assembly of Alabama, 1847-1852. 

Acts of the General Assembly of Georgia, 1846-1852. 

Journal of the State Convention, held in Milledgeville, in De- 
cember, 1850. Milledgeville, 1850. 



Bibliography 147 

Journal of the State Convention of South Carolina; together 
with the Resolution and Ordinance, Columbia, S. C, 1852. 

Journal of the South Carolina Senate, 1846-1852. 

Journal of the South Carolina House of Representatives, 1846- 
1852. 

Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of South Car- 
olina, 1846-1852. 

The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, vols. XI, XII, Colum- 
bia, 1873, 1874. 

Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1846-1851. 

IV. NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES 

Niles' Register, 1846-1849. 

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vols. I-IV. 

The Charleston Courier, daily, 1846-1852. Charleston Library. 

The Charleston Mercury, daily, 1846-1852. Charleston Library. 

The Charleston Evening News, daily, 1851-1852. Charleston 

Library. 
The South Carolinian (Columbia), semi-weekly, Jan. 14, 1848- 

Mar. 16, 1849 ; daily, 1851-1852. Library of Congress. 
The Tri-Weekly South Carolinian (Columbia), Oct. 2, 1849- 

Mar. 28, 1851. Library of Congress. 
The Columbia Daily Telegraph, Oct. 19, 1847- Apr. 19, 1848. 

Library of the University of South Carolina. 
The Winyah Observer (Georgetown), weekly, 1846-1852. Library 

of the Winyah Indigo Society, Georgetown, S. C. 
The Greenville Mountaineer, weekly, Oct. 23, 1846- Dec. 14, 

1849. Charleston Library. 
The Southern Patriot (Greenville), weekly, Feb. 28, 1851- May 

1, 1852. Charleston Library. File in Library of Congress 

ending with issue of Dee. 25, 1851, addressed to "Hon. D. 

Webster, Dept. of State." 



148 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

The Pendleton Messenger, weekly, August 7, 1846- Apr. 7, 1848. 
Library of the University of South Carolina. 

The Spartan (Spartanburg), weekly, Feb. 13, 1849- Dee. 25, 
1851. Kennedy Free Library, Spartanburg, S. C. 

The Black River Watchman (Sumterville), weekly, Apr. 27, 
1850- May 1, 1852. Library of the University of South Car- 
olina. 



V. PAMPHLETS 

The Position and Course of the South, by Wm. H. Trescot, Esq., 
Charleston, 1850. 

The Southern States, Their Present Peril, and Their Certain 
Remedy, Why do they not Right Themselves? and so fulfil 
their Glorious Destiny, [by John Townsend]. Charleston, 
1850. 

The Rightful Remedy. Addressed to the Slaveholders of the 
South, by Edward B. Bryan, Charleston, 1850. 

Letter to His Excellency, Whitemarsh B. Seabrook, Governor 
of the State of South Carolina, on the Dissolution of the 
Union, [by W. J. Grayson], 2d. Edition, Charleston, 1850. 

Speech of the Hon. Langdon Cheves, in the Nashville Conven- 
tion, November 15, 1850, Columbia, S. C, 1850. 

God, the Refuge of His People. A sermon delivered before the 
General Assembly of South Carolina, on Friday, December 
6, 1850, being a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, 
by Whitefoord Smith, D. D., Columbia, S. C, 1850. 

Views upon the Present Crisis. A Discourse, delivered in St. 
Peter's Church, Charleston, on the 6th of December, 1850, 
the Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, appointed by 
the Legislature of South Carolina. By Wm. H. Barnwell, 
rector of said church. Charleston, 1850. 



Bibliography 149 

An oration delivered before the Fourth of July Association, at 
the Hibernian Hall, July Fourth, 1850. By W. Alston 
Pringle. Charleston, 1850. 

Our Danger and Duty. A Discourse delivered in the Glebe- 
Street Presbyterian Church on Friday, December 6, 1850, 
by the Rev. A. A. Porter, Pastor. Charleston, 1850. 

Resolutions and Address adopted by The Southern Convention 
held at Nashville, Tennessee, June 3d to 12th, inclusive, 
1850. Together with a preamble and resolutions, adopted 
November 18th, 1850. Published by Order of the House of 
Representatives, Columbia, S, C, 1850. 

Speech of the Hon. W. F. Colcock, delivered before the meeting 
of Delegates from the Southern Rights Associations of 
South Carolina at Charleston, May, 1851. Charleston, 1851. 

Substance of an address delivered on the fourth of July, 1851, 
at the village of Beaufort, by Hon. Richard De Treville, 
Columbia, S. C, 1851. 

An address on the Question of Separate State Secession to the 
People of Barnwell District, by Lewis Malone Ayer, Jr., 
Charleston, S. C, 1851. 

Circular of Messrs. Perry, Duncan and Brockman, to the People 
of Greenville District, Asheville, 1851. 

An Address of the Southern Rights Association of the South 
Carolina College, to the students in the colleges, universi- 
ties, and to the young men, throughout the southern states. 
Columbia, S. C, 1851. 

Speech of the Hon. B. F. Perry of Greenville District, delivered 
in the House of Representatives of South Carolina, on the 
11th of December, 1850, on a number of propositions re- 
ferred to the committee of the whole on the State and Fed- 
eral affairs. Charleston, 1851. 

Our Mission : is it to be accomplished by the perpetuation of our 
present Union? The question considered by the Light of 



150 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

Revealed Religion in a Review of the Political opinions of 
some of our Clergy. Charleston, 1851. 

Proceedings of the meetings of Delegates from the Southern 
Rights Associations of South Carolina. Held at Charleston, 
May, 1851. Columbia, 1851. 

Separate State Secession, Practically Discussed, in a series of 
articles in the Edgefield Advertiser, by Rutledge. Edge- 
field, C. H., S. C, 1851. 

Southern Rights Documents. Cooperation meeting. Held in 
Charleston, S. C, July 29th, 1851. 

Southern Rights and Cooperation Documents. No. 2. — Remarks 
of the Hon. R. W. Barnwell, before the convention of South- 
ern Rights Associations in Charleston, May, 1851. 

Southern Rights and Cooperation Documents No. 6. — Proceed- 
ings of the great Southern Cooperation and Anti-Secession 
Meeting held in Charleston, September 23, 1851. Charles- 
ton, 1851. 

Southern Rights and Cooperation Documents No. 7. — Speech of 
Mr. Memminger at a public meeting of the friends of co- 
operation in the Cause of Southern Rights, held in Charles- 
ton, Sept. 23, 1851, for the purpose of nominating delegates 
to the Southern Congress. Charleston, 1851. 

Facts for the People, No. 7. Secession First — Cooperation Af- 
ter. Charleston, 1851. 

Southern Rights and Cooperation Document. The "Rutledge" 
Pamphlet Reviewed, in a series of editorials which origin- 
ally appeared in the Charleston Evening News. 

Speech delivered by Col. C. G. Memminger, made at the Mass 
Meeting in Pendleton. 

Report on the Subjects of Slavery, presented to the Synod of 
South Carolina, at their sessions in Winnsborough, Novem- 
ber 6, 1851, adopted by them, and published by their order. 
By Rev. J. H. Thornwell, D. D. Columbia, S. C, 1852. 



Bibliography 151 

VI. BIOGRAPHIES AND SPECIAL WORKS 

Boucher, Chauncey Samuel, The Ntdlification Controversy in 
South Carolina, Chicago, 1916. 

Capers, H. D., The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger, Rich- 
mond, 1893. 

Cole, Arthur C, "The South and the Right of Secession in the 
Early Fifties," in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, I, 
376-399. 

. The Whig Party in the South. Washington, 1913. 

DuBose, J. W., The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yan- 
cey, Birmingham, 1892. 

Garner, J. W., "The First Struggle Over Secession in Missis- 
sippi," in Publications of the Mississippi Hitorical Society, 
IV. 

Grayson, William J., James Laui^ Petigru, a Biographical 
Sketch, New York, 1866. 

Hearon, Cleo. Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850, in Publi- 
cations of the Mississippi Historical Society, XIV, 1-229. 

Herndon, Dallas T., "The Nashville Convention of 185Q," in 
Alabama Historical Society. Transactions, V, 203-237. 

Houston, D. F., A Critical Study of Nullification in South Caro- 
lina (Harvard Historical Studies, III), New York, 1896. 

Hunt, Gaillard, John C. Calhoun, Philadelphia, 1908. 

Jenkins, John Stillwell, The Life of John C. Calhoun, Buffalo, 
1857. 

Jervey, Theodore D., Robert Y. Hayne and Bis Times, New 

York, 1909. 
Meigs, W. M., The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun, 2 vols. New 

York, 1917. 
Newberry, Farrar, "The Nashville Convention and Southern 
Sentiment of 1850," in South Atlantic Quarterly, XI, 259- 
273. 



K 



152 The Secession Movement in South Carolina 

O'Neall, J. B., Biographical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of 
South Carolina, 2 vols., Charleston, 1859. 

Perry, B. F., Reminiscences of Public Men, Philadelphia, 1883. 

Sioussat, St. George L., "Tennessee, The Compromise of 1850, 
and the Nashville Convention," in Mississippi Valley His- 
torical Review, II, 311-347. 

Stille, Charles J., "The Life and Services of Joel R. Poinsett," 
in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XII. 

Von HoLst, Hermann Eduard, John C. Calhoun, Boston, 1892. 



